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THESIS

’1on

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THE PRODUCTION OF THE MUSLIM WOMAN IN WESTERN GNOSIS
FEMINIST THEORY AND MAGHREBIAN NATIONALISM AND LITERATURE

presented by

LAMIA BENYOUSSEF

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6/01 c:/CIRCJDaIeDuo.p65-p.15

THE PRODUCTION OF THE MUSLIM WOMAN IN WESTERN GNOSIS,
F EMINIST THEORY, MAGHREBIAN NATIONALISM AND LITERATURE

By

Lamia Ben Youssef

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

2002

ABSTRACT

THE PRODUCTION OF THE MUSLIM WOMAN 1N WESTERN GNOSIS,
F EMINIST THEORY, MAGHREBIAN NATIONALISM AND LITERATURE

By

Lamia Ben Youssef

There are four major arguments in this dissertation. The first is that as a single
category, the "Muslim woman" is an invention, whether in the Western discourses of
Orientalism and psychoanalytic feminism, or in the Maghrebian discourses of
nationalism and Islamic feminism. The second claim is that "the Muslim woman" is a
semiotic subject who is constantly being produced, transformed, or reinvented for various
political ends. The third argument is that cultures are invented and maintained to express
relations of power. Finally, against Edward W. Said's presentation of Orientalism as a
homogeneous and unified discourse that aims at dominating the Orient, the present study
argues that the discourses on the "Muslim woman" and the Orient are always ambivalent.
This ambivalence is caused by the enunciator's location within an apparatus of power, as
she/or he negotiates a position from which to speak.

This study is a hybrid work that combines Western and Islamic feminist theory as
well as psychoanalytic and historicist approaches. Going beyond the ghetto of ethno-
theory, this study tries to overcome the shortcomings and limits of any single one
approach. There are five chapters in this dissertation. The first chapter focuses on
Fatima Memissi's feminist reinvention of the "Muslim woman" and questions her use of a
Freudian paradigm to analyze the psyche of Muslim society. Examining the production

of the "Muslim woman" in the discourse of female Orientalism, the second chapter

argues that Isabelle Eberhardt's ambivalence towards the "Muslim woman" and the
French civilizing mission in the Maghreb depends on her position inside/outside the
French imperial world. Chapter three discusses the viability of French feminist and
psychoanalytic theory in the North African context and argues that these discourses
derive sometimes from the same Orientalist impulse we find in the male Orientalism
discussed by Said. The fourth chapter tries to reconceptualize the relations between
gender, nation, home, and identity in the nationalist discourses of Tahar a1 Haddad and
Habib Bourguiba in colonial and postcolonial Tunisia. A subject of the Islamic umma in
the writings of a1 Haddad, the "Tunisian woman" came to occupy, under the paternalistic
authority of Bourguiba, a double position as a subnational subject of the Shari 'a law and
a citizen of the modern state. The last chapter argues that the House of the Prophet has
always been deployed as a technology of power. Because it is constantly being claimed
by the hegemonic and marginal groups, the script of domesticity underlying this powerful
Muslim symbolic has always been plural and unstable. Deployed as an instrument of
political legitimacy by the Abbasid dynasty, this symbolic became a metaphor for
corruption and political absolutism in Abul Ala al Ma'arri's The Epistle of Forgivness
(1032), a critique of social disparities in postcolonial Tunisia in Aroussia Naluti's AI
T awba (1992), a metaphor for Islam's sexual oppression of women in Salman Rushdie's
The Satanic Verses (1988), and a means of self-empowerment in Assia Djebar's feminist

novel Loin de Médine (1991).

To my parents, my children, and my husband

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation would not have been possible without the guidance and
assistance of many people, and I would like to express here my heartfelt gratitude.

I wish to thank in particular the two directors of my dissertation Dr. Kenneth W.
Harrow and Dr. Salah Dean Assaf Hassan for their guidance and encouragement during
the wonderful yet hard process of writing this dissertation. I am grateful in particular to
Dr. Harrow for introducing me to postcolonial literature and French psychoanalysis and
feminism. My acquaintance with Dr. Harrow and his family rekindled my faith in
humanism and in the need to cross the boundaries of race, religion, and nation at a time
when right wing nationalist movements are dangerously gaining momentum worldwide.
I am equally grateful to Dr. Hassan for deepening my knowledge of Arabic and Islamic
studies and for pushing me to gain a critical perspective vis a vis my own cultural
background. I am grateful as well to the other members of my Ph.D. committee, Dr.
Dianne Brunner and Dr. Surjit Dulai, for their support and guidance.

In Tunisia, I wish to acknowledge my debt to Dr. Nassima Tarchouna for planting
in me the love of literature. I extend as well my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Hedi Sioud and
the Tunisian Ministry of Education for sponsoring my M.A. program at Michigan State
University, and to AMIDEAST for granting me a Fulbright scholarship during the first
two years of my doctoral program at MSU.

A special mention is in order for my Tunisian friends and colleagues Omar
Bouraoui, Selma Ben Abdallah, Slah Kefi, and Khalid Abid, who have been such an

invaluable source of support and information. I also offer my humble thanks to the

personnel working in the Tunisian National Library, the National Center of
Documentation, the RCD and the CREDIF Center for their support and help during my
research on gender and Tunisian nationalism. At the University of 9 Avril, I would like
to extend my thanks to Dr. Hachmi Trabelsi, Dr. Fethi Dali, and Dr. Ali Mahjoubi for
encouraging me to resume my doctoral studies at MSU.

And last but not least, I wish to thank my parents who passed on to me their love
of French literature and ancient Arabic poetry. Without their love and sacrifice, this
dissertation would not have been possible. I am eternally grateful to my mother Aisha
Ben Youssef for staying up all night taking care of my newborn while I was working on
the last revisions of my dissertation. I am equally grateful to my father Hichem Ben
Youssef who had never doubted I would succeed, and who over the last seven years, kept
sending me almost every pamphlet and book available in Tunisia about women's issues. I
am also very thankful to my husband Majd Zayzafoon whose patience and computer
skills were invaluable in the final process of printing and formatting this dissertation.
Many thanks also go out to my sister Najla, my brother Zoubeir, my baby-sitter Amna,
and my extended family in Béja and Tunis for their unquestioned support and
encouragement. Lastly, I wish to express my love and affection for my two sons
Alexander and Abraham whose laughter and cooing were refueling breaks amidst the

difficult process of writing my dissertation.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER 1
A Semiotic Reading of Islamic Feminism: Hybridity, Authority, and the Strategic
Reinvention of the Muslim Woman in Fatima Memissi .................................................. 19
I) Memissi's Strategic Deployment of Ijtihad ............................................................. 20
II) Memissi's Islamic Feminism: Between Conformity and Resistance ..................... 24
III) A North African Oedipus? Beyond the Reification of Culture ........................... 31
CHAPTER 2
Isabelle, ou "La Roumia Convertie": A Case Study in Female Orientalism .................... 39
I) Isabelle Eberhardt: An Introduction ........................................................................ 39
II) The Female Imperial Subject under the Third Republic: An Overview of
Colonial History and Gender Ideology in Nineteenth Century France ....................... 43
HI) Between Complicity and Resistance: Ebehardt's Ambivalence towards the
"Muslim Woman" and the French Civilizing Mission ............................................... 48
IV) "La Roumia Convertie" ........................................................................................ 59
V) Redefining the Seraglio ......................................................................................... 79
CHAPTER 3
The Muslim Woman and the Iconography of the Veil in French Feminism and
Psychoanalysis .................................................................................................................. 85
I) The Algerian Woman and the Dynamism of the Veil: Patriarchy,
Nationalism, and Orientalism in Frantz Fanon's "Algeria Unveiled" ......................... 88
II) The "Veiled Phallus" in the Land of Veiled Women: Reading Jacques
Lacan in a North Afiican Context ............................................................................... 94
III) Between Complicity and Transvaluation: Helene Cixous's Double Vision
of the Muslim Woman and the Veil ............................................................................ 99
a) The Iconography of the Veil and the Harem in Simone de Beauvoir and
Luce Irigaray ......................................................................................................... 99
b) The Decree Crémieux and the Aryanization of the Algerian Jews ................ 102
c) Looking Through the Lens of Aryan Sycorax: The Muslim Woman
and the Veil in the Text-Lait of Helene Cixous .................................................. 105
d) In Remembrance of Algeria Past: Helene Cixous and the Search
for Arabitude ....................................................................................................... 1 13
CHAPTER 4
Body, Home, and Nation: The Production of the Tunisian Muslim Woman
in the Reforrnist Thought of Tahar al Haddad and Habib Bourguiba ............................. 120
I) Al Haddad and Bourguiba and the Debate over the Woman Question in
Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Tunisia .................................................... 122
II) Ambivalence in al Haddad's and Bourguiba's Construction of the
"Muslim Woman" ..................................................................................................... 131

vii

III) On the Gendered Discourse of Tunisian Nationalism: The Female

Body of the Nation and the Male gendering of Nationalist Agency ......................... 139
a) The Muslim Woman as the Body of the Umma ............................................. 140
b) Necrophilia or the Male Gendering of Nationalist Agency ............................ 142
c) Bourguiba and the Invention of "La Personnalité T unisienne" Before
and After Independence ...................................................................................... 146
IV) The Muslim Woman as Subject of the Umma and Citizen of the
Modern State ............................................................................................................. 149
V) Power Politics and the Reception of a1 Haddad's and Bourguiba's
Reformist Thought .................................................................................................... 157
CHAPTER 5
Reinventing Domesticity and the Sacred: The House of the Prophet as a
Technology of Power ...................................................................................................... 165
I) Excavating Islamic Memory: The House of the Prophet as a
Technology of Power ................................................................................................ 167
II) Reinventing the House of the Prophet: A Study of Domestic and Power
Politics in a1 Ma'arri's Shi'i Paradise ......................................................................... 169
a) Abul 'Ala a1 Ma'arri and his Garden: An Introduction ................................... 169
b) The House of the Prophet Between Continuity and Resistance: A Shi'i
Heaven and a Monogarnous Muhammad ........................................................... 171
c) Revisiting a1 Ma'arri's Male Paradise: Gender and Politics in Aroussia
Naluti's Al T awba ................................................................................................ 182
III) Claiming Muhammad's legacy: Djebar's Feminist Reinvention of the
House of the Prophet in Loin de Médine .................................................................. 184
a) "She Never Invents: She Recreates": Djebar's Loin de Médine as a
Strategic Rereading of Islamic Chronicles ......................................................... 186
b) Looking Through the Lens of Ecriture Feminine: Dj ebar's Reinvention
of The House of the Prophet as Voice, Body, and Movement ........................... 192
c) The House of the Prophet and the Question of Female Agency in Loin
de Médine and The Satanic Verses ..................................................................... 199
d) Beyond the Ghetto of Cultural Essentialism .................................................. 204
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 212

viii

Introduction

The Production of the Muslim Woman in Western Gnosis, Feminist Theory,
Maghrebian Nationalism and Literature investigates the configurations of power
implicated in the production of the discourses on the "Muslim woman" in the West and
North Africa. In contrast with the Western narrative of the victimized "Muslim woman,"
and in opposition to the Islamist narrative in which "the Muslim woman" has no claims
because Islam elevated her position fifteen hundred years ago, this dissertation argues
that as a single category, the "Muslim woman" is an invention, whether in the Western
discourses of Orientalism and Western psychoanalytic feminism, or in the discourses of
Arab nationalism and Islamic feminism in colonial and postcolonial North Afiica.
Against the term "representation," which posits a binary opposition between true and
false representation, the word "invention" presents the "Muslim woman" as an unfixed
yet situated signifier.

As a fixed category, the "Muslim woman" fiznctions metaphorically1 to produce
the alterity and inferiority of Islam as in the discourse of Orientalism or to symbolize
Tunisian identity as in the nationalist master-narratives of Tahar a1 Haddad and Habib
Bourguiba. Whereas the metaphoric usage of the "Muslim woman" in the discourses of
Orientalism and Maghrebian nationalism is sutured, the metonymic deployment of the
"Muslim woman" in the writings of Assia Djebar resists closure and produces the
"Muslim woman" as an unfixed and plural signifier. Resisting all claims to presence and
identity, this dissertation constructs the "Muslim woman" in view of Jacques Derrida's
notion of "excess" or "supplementarity" (0f Grammatology 145) (1976). As such, rather

than being fixed, the "Muslim woman" occupies an "in-between" space (Bhabha, The

Location of Culture 55) (1994), one that cuts across the binary oppositions of self and
other or "slave and master."

Besides taking into account the racial diversity of Muslim women in the
Maghreb--Arabs, Berbers, and Blacks--and their differences of class and education, this
study views the word "Muslim" as heterogeneous. Even though Islam is not the focus of
this dissertation, this study is aware of the different Islamic groups and subgroups living
in the Maghreb, namely, the Sunna with its Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbali, and Shafi'i schools
and the Sufi brotherhoods like the Tij aniya and a1 Kadiriya. This heterogeneity, however,
is to be viewed in terms of Derrida's concept of diflérance, rather than the "arrested" or
"fixated" (The Location of Culture 75) differences that Bhabha describes in his discussion
of colonial discourse.

The second major claim in this study is that the "Muslim woman" is a semiotic
subject who is produced according to the law of supply and demand to serve various
political and ideological ends. Building on Teresa De Lauretis's three claims--1) that the
human subject is always "gendered" and "produced through language" (Technologies of
Gender 19) (1987); 2) that gender is "the representation of a relation"; 3) and that it is
"the product and the process of both representation and self-representation" (9)--this
dissertation argues that "the Muslim woman" is essentially a semiotic subject that is
produced and reproduced by Orientalist, Islamic, feminist, and nationalistic discourses.
A major focus shall be placed on the situatedness of these discourses produced on the
North African "Muslim woman": Where do writers like Isabelle Eberhardt, Jacques

Lacan, Helene Cixous, Tahar a1 Haddad, Habib Bourguiba, Fatima Memissi, Assia

Djebar, and Abul Ala a1 Ma'arri come from when they receive/manufacture/transform
images of the "Muslim woman"?2

The third argument of this dissertation is that cultures are invented and maintained
to express relations of power. Just as the "Muslim woman" is invented to negotiate
European identity or national identity in the discourse of Orientalism or Arab
nationalism, cultural differences are also invented to negotiate one's place and identity in
the world. Dismissing the conventional anthropological notion of culture as a set of
social practices common to a special locale, nation, or tribe, and the assumptions of
Muslim feminists like Memissi about the territorialized oppressive Islamic culture of the
Maghreb, this dissertation argues not only that there is no homogeneous or unifying
Islamic culture in the Maghreb, but more importantly, that the so-called "Islamic culture"
that Memissi denounces is in fact nothing but a current ideological or political invention
that masquerades as an authentic Islamic tradition (J ean-Loup Amselle, Mestizo Logics 3)
(1998). It is the objective of this study to demonstrate that cultural identity, as Kenneth
W. Harrow puts it, emerges from "contestation," from setting oneself against another;

"3 Rather than focusing on the

hence, it cannot be "confined within established borders.
cultural differences between the Maghreb and the West, this dissertation investigates the
hegemonic positions from which a discourse articulating cultural and gender difference is
enunciated, and the processes through which cultures are imposed, invented, and
transformed.

The fourth and final claim of this dissertation is that Orientalist, feminist, or

nationalist discourses on the "Muslim woman" are always ambivalent. In contrast with

Edward W. Said's monolithic presentation of Orientalism as a homogeneous Western

discourse that aims at dominating and subduing an immoral and effeminate Orient, the
present study argues that the Orientalist discourses on the "Muslim woman" are always
ambivalent. This ambivalence is caused by the enunciator's location within an apparatus
of power (Bhabha, The Location of Culture 1), as she/he negotiates a position from which
to speak. This study takes upon itself the task of investigating the racial, social,
educational, and gender privileges which allow Western female travelers in the Maghreb,
Western and Muslim feminists, and North African nationalist revolutionaries to speak on
behalf of the "Muslim woman." The following section explains more fully in what way
this dissertation departs fi'om Said's study of gender and colonialism in Orientalism
(1979) and Culture and Imperialism (1993).

Many feminists criticized Said for his gender politics. For instance, in "Presences
and Absences in Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism," Haniet D. Lyons points to the
omission in Said's work of African women's struggle against colonialism: "The Igbo
Women's War of 1929 is nowhere mentioned, though it was prominently reported and
brought the dysphoria of colonized women to the attention of the British public" (102).
To the aforesaid criticism, I shall add that nowhere in his work does Said cite Arab
women writers and feminists, let alone mention Arab women's struggle against French
and British imperialism. In an interview with Jacqueline Rose, Said provides an excuse
for the conspicuous absence of women from his work, which he explains by the
phallocentrism underlying his British education:

And I always went to all-male schools, and the ethos-~I think you
have to blame this on the British a little bit--the ethos was terribly
masculine. In my higher education, there were no women as

students, none as professors, neither at Princeton when I was an
undergraduate nor at Harvard [...] Then I've tried to educate

myself, but too late probably, in the history and writing by women

about women of the last few years [i.e., after Orientalism]. (87)
This explanation is unconvincing, for if Said had been able to denounce the racism in the
British and American academy and attack an ethnocentric book like Allan D. Bloom's
The Closing of the American Mind,4 he should have been able to escape the sexism of his
British education.

In Orientalism (1979), Said's study of the image of the "Muslim woman" in the
works of the nineteenth century French writers (Gustave Flaubert, Gérard de Nerval,
Francois Renée Chateaubriand, and Charles Baudelaire) reveals two sets of imagery. In
the first set, the "Muslim woman" appears as a licentious sexual creature. She is often
working as a prostitute or a courtesan like Flaubert's Kuchuk Hanem:

F laubert's encounter with an Egyptian courtesan produced a widely
influential model of the Oriental woman; she never spoke of
herself, she never represented her emotions, presence, or history.
He spoke for and represented her. He was foreign, comparatively
wealthy, male, and these were historical facts of domination that
allowed him not only to possess Kuckuk Hanem physically but to
speak for her and tell his readers in what way she was "typically
Oriental." (Orientalism 6)
Because of her excessive sexuality, the "Oriental woman" becomes a femme fatale,
similar to the legendary type of Isis, Cleopatra, and Salome (180).

In the second type, the "Muslim woman" epitomizes the exotic essence of the
Orient, which the European male traveler covets and tries to possess. Commenting on the
function of the "Oriental woman" in Nerval's Vaisseau d ’Orient, Said writes:

The Orient symbolizes Nerval's dream quest and the fugitive

woman central to it, both as desire and as loss. Vaisseau d'Orient--
vessel of the Orient--refers enigrnatically either to the woman as

the vessel carrying the Orient, or possibly, to Nerval’s own vessel

for the Orient, his prose voyage. (184)
Whether a prostitute or the symbol of a mysterious Orient, these two sets of imagery
associated with the "Muslim woman" are constitutive of the discourse of Orientalism,
which constructs/uses the degeneracy and effeminacy of the Oriental as an excuse to
invade/penetrate the Middle East under the cloak of the French civilizing mission.
Showing the deep complicity between literary knowledge and the institutions of power,
Said demonstrates how the image of the "Oriental woman" as a prostitute or a barren
woman (187) is complicit with the European imperialist project of conquering and
civilizing a lifeless, feminine, and immoral East. As Said puts it: "My argument is that
F laubert's situation of strength in relation to Kuchuk Hanem was not an isolated instance.
It fairly stands for the pattern of relative strength between East and West, and the
discourse about the Orient that it enabled" (6).

Said's discussion of male Orientalism seems to derive from the Freudian
distinction between the surface and latent meaning of a text. As a prostitute or a barren
"femme fatale," the "Oriental woman" functions on the surface level as a metaphor for
the Orient's need for Europe's civilizing mission. On a deeper level, she is a "sort of
surrogate and even underground sell" (3) for Europe. The excessive sexuality of
Flaubert's Kuchuk Hanem as well as his obsession with harems and dancing women
illustrate the "escapism of sexual fantasy." The sexual indulgence of the Orientals
compensates for Flaubert's sexual frustration under Europe's bourgeois morality:

Emma Bovary and Frederic Moreau pine for what in their drab (or
hanied) bourgeois lives they do not have, packed inside Oriental

cliches: harems, princesses, princes, slaves, veils, dancing girls and
boys, sherbets, ointrnents, and so on. The repertoire is familiar, not

so much because it reminds us of F laubert's own voyages in and
obsession with Orient, but because, once again, the association is
clearly made between the Orient and the freedom of licentious sex.
We may as well recognize that for nineteenth century Europe, with
its increasing embourgeoisement, sex had been institutionalized to
a very considerable degree. On the one hand, there was no such
thing as "free" sex, and on the other, sex in society entailed a web
of legal, moral, even political and economic obligations of a
detailed and certainly encumbering sort. (190)

The excessive sexuality of the Oriental (the surface meaning of Flaubert's text) could be,
as Said says, a trope to compensate for F laubert's sexual repression under bourgeois
morality (latent meaning), but what appears here to be a latent meaning (the sexual
repression following the embourgeoisement of European society), could also be a
displacement for an earlier act of repression; the repression of Flaubert's homoerotic
desire.

In "Vacation Cruises: or, the Homoerotics of Orientalism," Joseph Boone rightly
criticizes Said for his silence over the homoerotic in his discussion of Orientalism.
Boone writes that Flaubert was in fact fascinated with "Hassan el Belbeissi," an Egyptian
male dancer, not "Kuchuk Hanem" (Boone 92). Even though Jean-Leon Gérome's
painting "The Snake Charmer"--a voyeuristic spectacle where eleven Oriental men gaze
at the penis of a young Arab boy-appears on the cover of Orientalism, nowhere in his
book does Said discuss this painting's voyeuristic economy of desire. In this tableau,
only the Arab men can see the young boy's penis, which seems to be deliberately hidden
from the painting's viewers. This veiling or artistic prohibition is instrumental in kindling
the spectator's desire. Because desire always involves the substitution of one word for
another (Lacan), the snake, as a phallic symbol, should be seen as a substitute for the

absent object of desire, i.e., the young boy's penis. As he plays with the snake, the young

boy acts out the masturbatory fantasies of the male imperial painter/viewer, who
exclusively sees and exoticizes the young boy's buttocks.

Gérome's painting recalls a similar scene in Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility Tour
(1972), where a young snake charmer enters the French man's room and undresses in
front of him to show him that there is no trickery. In this scene, the snake appears as a
third body where the homoerotic encounter between Flaubert and the young boy takes
place:

He lifted the snake to my car; it bit me hard; with a finger he took
the blood from the bite and spread it on the ground; then he
breathed twice into my mouth, made me breathe twice on the large
black snake, which he had wrapped around my neck, twice rubbed
my bloody ear with his hand that he had moistened with his saliva,

once again asked me for "a big tip"--and the thing was done. (The
italics are my emphasis 89)

Even though his narrative suggests the primitiveness of the Orient and its strange
cultural practices, Flaubert's writings about his sexual adventures in Egypt are quite
subversive of the French civilizing mission in the Orient. After noting how sodomy is
accepted in the East, Flaubert confesses in a letter to his friend Louis Bouilhet (15
January 1850)--and not without irony--that "traveling as [he was] for educational
purposes, and charged with a mission by the government, [he has] considered it [his] duty
to indulge in this form of ejaculation" (Flaubert in Egypt 84). In the Turkish bath, the
Kellaa "was rubbing him gently" (83), and "lifted up [his] boules d 'amour to clean them,"
put his right hand on his "prick," and asked for baksheesh. Flaubert pushed him away.
Yet, far from being "angry," Flaubert "laughed aloud like a dirty old man." In another
letter to Bouilhet (2 June 1850), Flaubert wrote that he finally "consumed that business at

the baths." It was "on a pockrnarked young rascal wearing a white turban. It made

[Flaubert] laugh, that's all. But [he'll] be at it again. To be done well, an experiment
must be repeated" (203-04). Flaubert might be complicit with the French civilizing
mission as Said claims, but in presenting these homoerotic encounters as part of his
official mission in Egypt, he is undermining the dichotomy between Eastern degeneracy
and Occidental morality, which is at the heart of the French civilizing mission in the
Middle East. Hence, Orientalism rather than being a monolithic discourse as Said
presents it, is always ambivalent.

Similarly, Flaubert's self-presentation as a "frequenter" of Parisian brothels and
prostitutes is subversive of the French civilizing mission, which locates degeneracy
outside its national borders, i.e., in those countries to be conquered. For Flaubert,
prostitution, indeed, seems to have a "particular mystique":

It may be a perverted taste [. . .] but I love prostitution, and for
itself, too, quite apart from its carnal aspects. My heart begins to
pound every time I see one of those women in low-cut dresses
walking under the lamplight in the rain, just as monks in their
corded robes have always excited some deep, ascetic comer of my
soul. (F laubert in Egypt 9-10)

Subverting the moral superiority underlying the French civilizing mission,
Flaubert compares the Muslim prostitutes to the Christian prostitutes he encountered in
the brothels of France: "Kuchuk dances with my tarboosh on her head. Then she
accompanies us to the end of her quarter, climbing up on our backs and making faces and
jokes like any Christian tart" (116). In another letter, he writes that the "word almeh
means 'learned woman,’ 'blue-stocking,’ or 'whore'nwhich proves, Monsieur, that in all

countries women of letters. ..!!!" (129). The footnote accompanying the letter states that

Flaubert is referring here to his French mistress Louise Colet. Thus, Flaubert's depiction

of the Oriental woman as a prostitute reveals not only the French colonial desire to
dominate and subdue the East, but also F laubert's own misogynistic attitude towards
women in general whether they be Colets or Kuchuk Hanems. 5

F laubert's discourses on the "Oriental woman" depend on the context in which
they have been articulated. When Louise Colet wrote Flaubert a letter in which she
expressed her jealousy of Kuchuk Hanem, to appease her anger, F laubert painted her a
harsh picture of the Egyptian woman:

The Oriental woman is no more than a machine: she makes no
distinction between one man and another man. Smoking, going to
the baths, painting her eyelids and drinking coffee--such is the
circle of occupations within which her existence confined. As for
physical pleasure, it must be very slight, since the well known
button, the seat of same, is sliced off at an early age. (Flaubert in
Egypt 220)

In a letter to Sainte-Beuve (23-24 December 1862), Flaubert compares Amilcar's
daughter Salammbo to Saint Therese. And in contrast with his previous assertion to
Colet that the Oriental woman is a "machine," he now claims that all knowledge of the
Oriental woman is impossible:

Mme Bovary est agite'e par des passions multiples; Salammbo au
contaire demeure cloue'e par l'idée fixe. Cest une maniaque, une
espece de Saint Therese. N'importe! Je ne suis pas sur de sa
réalité; car ni moi, ni vous, ni personne, aucun ancien et aucun
modern, ne peut conna’itre la femme orientale, par la raison qu'il est
impossible de la fréquenter. (qtd. in Lawrence R. Schehr
"Salammbo‘ as the Novel of Alterity" 328)

In Salammbo" (1862), which is set during the Mercenaries' War (241-38 B.C.)
between Carthage and the Numidians--just after Carthage lost the First Punic War against

Rome--Flaubert points to the heterogeneity of the Orient and to the ethnic and political

10

conflicts setting on the one hand the Carthagenians/Phoenicians against the
"Barbarians"/Afiicans, and against the Romans on the other hand. In this historical
novel, Flaubert identifies with the Romans, the Carthagenians, and the "Barbarians." For
instance, Matho, the Numidian or "Barbarian" hero who fell in love with the Canaanite
Salammbo, is presented as a Christ-like figure. He dies a horrible death at the hands of
an angry mob: his ears torn, his cheeks slit with needles, his face smeared in filth, his
chest branded with "a red-hot bar" before being opened with a knife (350-53). Even
though he identifies with Rome because it is the emblem of the Western world, Flaubert
still feels sympathy for the Barbarian Matho and expresses his admiration for the
Canaanite King Amilcar.

Historicizing this process of identification, Lisa Howe observes that the repeated
defeats of Carthage echo the repeated defeats of Napoleon and "France's international
losses" during the unstable period of the "bourgeois revolt" known as "the July Monarchy
of 1830" ("The Orient as Woman in Flaubert's Salammbo and Voyage en Orient" 46).
According to Michel Butor, Salammbo is a "double text" (qtd. in Lowe 47), where
Carthage appears as "the hidden face of ancient Rome," or the Other "buried" and
"denied" at first by Rome, then by France. Despite its colonial undertones, Flaubert's
novel situates Carthage half way between East and West; the same Greek, Mycenaean,
Phoenician, and Egyptian influences, which gave birth to Carthage have also generated
Western culture.

Another problem Porter identifies in Orientalism is Said's reluctance to consider
other alternatives to Orientalism (Porter 151). Even though he wonders if there could

ever be "nonrepressive and nonmanipulative" (24) Western studies of the Orient, Said

11

never returns to this issue later. This dissertation takes issue with Said's pessimistic
view-- in Orientalism 6at least--that knowledge of the other is impossible. Said's premise
might have drastic implications on the political activism of North African feminists, such
as stripping the latter from the incentive to reach out and understand the problems of
other women across the boundaries of class, race, and nation. Finally, whereas Said de-
emphasizes class and gender to focus exclusively on the Orient's subjection to Western
hegemony, The Production of the Muslim Woman goes beyond the stereotypical vision of
the victimized "Muslim woman in the discourses of Orientalism and Arab nationalism, to
examine patriarchy in terms of different configurations of power such as class, education,
race, and gender.

From a methodological point of view, The Production of the Muslim Woman is a
hybrid work combining Western and Islamic feminist theory as well as a psychoanalytic
and historicist approaches. Going beyond the ghetto of ethno-theory, this study tries to
overcome the shortcomings and limits of any single approach; its primary objective is to
interrogate the text, generate meanings, and disclose relations and concepts that would
remain hidden were it to rely exclusively on one approach and not the other. It is the task
of the postcolonial writer/critic/reader to interrogate her/his own premises and throw the
theory against itself. As Judith Butler puts it, to deconstruct does not mean to dismiss,
but to put into question:

To deconstruct the concept of matter or that of bodies is not to
negate or refuse either term. To deconstruct these terms means,
rather, to continue to use them, to repeat them, to repeat them
subversively, and to displace them from the contexts in which they
have been deployed as instruments of oppressive power... To call

a presupposition into question is not the same as doing away with
it; rather, it is to free it up fiom its metaphysical lodgings in order

12

to occupy and to serve very different political aims. (Butler,
Feminists Iheorize the Political l7)

Endorsing Butler's warnings against "a transcultural notion of patriarchy" (Gender
Trouble 35), this study makes the claim that almost all societies are patriarchal, but that
patriarchal oppression takes on different forms; hence the need for a localized strategic
feminism, one in alliance with Western feminism, yet aware of the different forms of
local patriarchies; and hence also the need to devise an appropriate in-situ feminist
agenda. Even though this dissertation engages with Western feminist theory, it also
interrogates its viability when applied to the North Afiican context. If we grant that the
image of the Muslim woman is invented, does this mean that the different forms of
oppression she is subjected to are also invented? How can we reject state authority
(Butler) in the North African context where Muslim feminists, in their dedication to
social and political commitment, want to involve the state in promulgating laws that
protect women's rights? What are the limits of constructedness? What problems
accompany the idealization of agency and women's voices?

This dissertation also shows the limits of using Lacanian theory in the
Maghrebian context. For instance, what are the consequences of applying Jacques
Lacan's notion that the phallus works best when veiled to the Algerian context where the
FIS holds that the glory of Islam consists in the control of the female body through
seclusion and veiling? Should we dismiss psychoanalysis altogether? It is a common
misconception indeed to dismiss psychoanalysis because of its Western universalism. In
his essay, "The Function and Field of Speech and language in Psychoanalysis,” Lacan
stands against the American "ahistoricism" and states that the symbolic is always

mediated through the local culture:7

13

In the symbolic order first of all, one cannot neglect the importance

of the c factor, which I noted at the Congress of Psychiatry in 1950

as being the constant characteristic of any given cultural milieu: the

condition here of the ahistoricism, which, by common accord, is

recognized as being the principle feature of "communication" in the

United States, and which, in my opinion, is at the antipodes of the

psychoanalytic experience" (Ecrits 37-8).
However, one has to be aware of the limits of psychoanalysis, notably of its
overemphasis on "sexual matters" and "exclusion" (Claudia Tate, "Freud and His 'Negro':
Psychoanalysis as Ally and Enemy of Afiican Americans" 53) of racial and social issues.
As Claudia Tate puts it, rather than dismissing psychoanalysis because of Freud's "Negro
jokes" (56) or because it is a white practice intended for the white "well-to-do,"
psychoanalysis needs to be critiqued and revised in order "to address more pressing
concems--such as Western cultural crises in which the family, race, and cultural
difference play critical roles," and be put "in a much larger cultural context than the white
bourgeois family" (61). Just as psychoanalysis is useful in illuminating the not so
obvious meanings of a text, a historicist approach is also instrumental in situating the
ideological production and deployment of the "Muslim woman" within a certain
conjuncture.

There are five chapters in this dissertation. The first chapter, "A Semiotic
Reading of Islamic Feminism: Hybridity, Authority, and the Strategic Reinvention of the
Muslim Woman in Fatima Memissi," focuses on the production of the "Muslim woman"
in the discourse of the Moroccan sociologist Fatima Memissi. In opposition to the
Western monolithic perception of the "Muslim woman," Memissi reinvents the Muslim

woman as a plural yet situated signifier. Just like the "Muslim woman" fabricated by the

Islamist discourse, the "Muslim women" produced by Memissi are strategic inventions

l4

that ought to be examined in view of the current hegemonic configurations of power in
Morocco. However, by marking J ahilia as the original point of Islamic culture, Memissi
undercuts any notion of Islam being heir to the earlier Middle Eastern cultures, falling
therefore in the originary thinking of Islamic fundamentalism. This chapter also
questions Memissi's use of Freudian theory to analyze the psyche of Muslim societies as
well as the sources of her authority to write on behalf of Moroccan women.

The second chapter fills out Said's silence over female Orientalism. "Isabelle, ou
'La Roumia Convertie': A Case Study in Female Orientalism" focuses on the relationship
of Western women with North African women and on their understanding of gender as
white women residing in the Arab world. The production of the "Muslim woman" in
Eberhardt's autobiographical and fictional writings will be investigated in view of the fin-
de-siecle French colonial culture. This chapter demonstrates how Eberhardt's
ambivalence vis a vis the "Muslim woman" and the French civilizing mission in the
Maghreb depends on her position inside/outside the French imperial world. This
corroborates the view that culture is a relation of power (Amselle), not something specific
to an ethnicity or locale. This chapter also uses Eberhardt to critique Bhabha for his
androcentric view of the hybrid.

Relying on De Lauretis's notion of gender as "representation," the third chapter,
"The Muslim Woman and the Iconography of the veil in French Feminism and
Psychoanalysis," discusses the viability of Western feminist and psychoanalytic theory in
the North African context and argues that these discourses derive at times from the same
Orientalist impulse we find in the male Orientalism discussed by Said. The first part of

this chapter argues that even though he is situated on the left, Frantz Fanon's discourse on

15

the veil in "Algeria Unveiled" is both patriarchal and Orientalist. The second section
traces Lacan's notion of the "veiled phallus" to the primacy of the specular in Western
metaphysics and to the discourses of the veil produced during the Algerian Revolution.
The third part of this chapter examines how French feminists like Simone de Beauvoir,
Julia Kristeva, and Luce Irigaray recycle the earlier Orientalist discourses on the "Muslim
woman." In contrast with the other French feminists, Helene Cixous's discourse on the
"Muslim woman" stands inside/outside French imperial ideology. The final part of this
chapter examines how Cixous's Les Réveries de la femme sauvage: Scenes primitives
(2000) presents a "doubled vision" (De Lauretis 10) vis a vis the veil and Algerian
Muslim women. Cixous's ambivalence will be examined against her self-proclaimed
"literary nationality" (Héléne Cixous: Photos de Racines 207) (1994), her autobiography,
and the Frenchification of the Algerian Jews.

The fourth chapter, "Body, Home, and Nation: The Production of the Tunisian
Muslim Woman in the Nationalist and Reformist Thought of Tahar al Haddad and Habib
Bourguiba," focuses on the invention of the "Tunisian Muslim woman" in the feminist
and nationalist discourses of Habib Bourguiba (1903-2000) and Tahar a1 Haddad (1899-
1935). This chapter examines how the double privilege of gender and education gives al
Haddad and Bourguiba not only the authority to speak on behalf of the "Tunisian
woman," but also the power to claim for her a traditional past and a future.

The last chapter, "Reinventing Domesticity and the Sacred: The House of the
Prophet as a Technology of Power," makes the claim that as a technology of power, the
House of the Prophet is claimed not only by hegemonic Islamic groups, but also by those

who are situated on the margin of Islamic orthodoxy. This chapter argues that in

16

contrast with the cynicism of Abul 'Ala al Ma'arri in The Epistle of Forgiveness (1032),
which makes him reject the House of the Prophet as an instrument of political
legitimation, Assia Djebar's political commitment in Loin de Médine (1991) makes her
engage in the dominant discourse of Islamic orthodoxy and reinvent the House of the
Prophet through the lens of both écriture feminine and Islamic feminism. This chapter
will also briefly examine the invention of the House of the Prophet in Salman Rushdie's
The Satanic Verses (1988) and Al T awba, a 1992 theatrical readaptation of a1 Ma'ani's

divine comedy by the Tunisian novelist Aroussia Naluti.

 

' I am relying here on Horni K. Bhabha's distinction between metonymy and metaphor: whereas the first is
a "supplementary strategy" that is open and based on difference, the second is closed and sutured as it
conflates "the many as one," and "totalize[s] the social in a homogenous empty time" (The Location of
Culture 155).

2 My own claim that the "Muslim woman" is a political invention derives from my privileges of class and
Western education, and the colonial status of my ancestry; the Turks who confiscated almost the whole
region of Beja, the most fertile land in Tunisia, and formerly known as "The Basket of Rome." During my
visit to Tunisia in May 2001, I realized how deep the gap is between the preoccupations of upper and
middle-class Muslim women studying in American universities, and the Muslim female students from the
lower-classes who work as maids and in slave-like conditions to support their families and buy school-
books. One of these young women was Amna whom I hired as a baby-sitter so that I could go to the
Tunisian National Archives and The National Library and write about Bourguiba and a1 Haddad. I realized
(and not without guilt) that intellectual pursuits like the present dissertation are the domain of the
privileged; Muslim women like Amna worry about food and still go to school on an empty stomach. Not
once did Amna complain about Tunisian men or Islamic patriarchy. Her main concern was feeding her
sick old mother, that is to say, survival. My contact with Tunisian women from the lower classes made me
realize that patriarchy is a matter of power and social class, not simply gender.

3 Paper presented at the 2001 African Literature Association Annual Conference in Richmond, Virginia
under the title of "Shibboleths in the Production of Culture."

4 Edward W. Said, "Identity, Authority, and Freedom: The Potentate and the Traveler," Boundary 2 (Fall
1992)5.

5 Flaubert's mystical interest in prostitutes could also be explained by the teachings of the Saint Simonians
who preached free love and destigmatized prostitution in early nineteenth century France.

6 Said's political commitment for the Palestinian people made him later change this position. See Bruce
Robbins, "Race, Gender, Class, Postcolonialisnu Toward a New Humanistic Paradigm?" A Companion to
Postcolonial Studies, eds. Henry Schwarz & Sangeeta Ray (Malden: Blackwell, 2000) 556-73.

7 This dissertation views "local culture" as a set of power relations temporarily characterizing a specific
locale, rather than a set of misogynistic cultural practices which are fixed in time and space. In this study,

17

 

the concept of "cultural difference" refers to the different power relations which govern all human societies,
whether Eastern or Western.

18

Chapter One: A Semiotic Reading of Islamic Feminism: Hybridity, Authority, and

the Strategic Reinvention of the Muslim Woman in Fatima Memissi

This chapter examines how the "Muslim woman" has been constructed, even by
Muslim women feminists, within the binary of the West and Islam. Using De Lauretis's
claim that gender is representation, the first part of this chapter argues that Memissi's
reinvention of the "Muslim woman" stands outside/inside Western and Islamic
ideologies. Whereas Memissi's presentation of the "Muslim woman" as a plural signifier
and her revision of Islamic tradition constitute a break with the earlier Orientalist and
Islamic discourses on the "Muslim woman," her reliance on the opposition between
"tradition" and "modernity" and her re—authentification of the hadith as sources of
authority are in continuity with those earlier discourses on the "Muslim woman." The
second section of this chapter examines the contradictions in Memissi's construction of
the Muslim woman and refashioning of Islamic tradition in view of the current power
politics in Morocco and the Muslim world. The third section investigates the sources of
Merrrissi's authority to claim a past Islamic tradition for the "Muslim woman" as well as
the implications of her invention of a homogenous "Islamic culture." The final section of
this chapter questions Memissi's reliance on a Freudian paradigm to study the
consciousness of all Muslim societies.

Born in 1940 in a religious and conservative well-to-do family in Fez, Memissi
spent the first few years of her life in a harem before receiving a dual French and Arabic
education in French colonial Morocco (Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood)
(1994). She was formerly a Professor at the University of Muhammad V at Rabat, and is

currently a member of the United Nations' University Council. Because of her dual

l9

cultural background, Memissi's construction of the "Muslim woman" rests on the double

bind to reproduce and resist the discourses of both the Orientalist and Islamic tradition.

I) Memissi's Strategic Deployment of Ijtihad

Far fiom the metaphoric usage of the "Muslim woman" as a symbol for Islam or
Muhammad's umma ("nation") in the respective discourses of Orientalism and Islarnism,
Memissi's "Muslim woman" is deployed metonymically (Bhabha 155) to express the
plurality and diversity of Muslim women's experiences. Unlike the Orientalist male
invention of the "Muslim woman" as a prostitute or "victim of male violence" in Western
feminist scholarship (Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes: Feminist
Scholarship and Colonial Discourses," Williams, Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial
Theory 201), or the subsequent scenario of her rape and abduction by imperial powers in
Arab nationalist discourses, Memissi reinvents "the Muslim woman" as an unfixed and
plural signifier. In her investigation of the desegregation of the sexes in Moroccan
society, Memissi focuses on the differences between the women she is interviewing:
"The categories 'modem' and 'traditional'1 cover a range of differences in age, education,
employment, and so on" (Beyond the Veil 90) (1985). In Chahrazad n'est pas marocaine
(1991), she makes the claim that illiteracy is the major challenge facing rural Moroccan
women in the twenty first century. Unlike the mythical Chahrazad who saved her life
through her erudition, the illiteracy of Moroccan women (estimated at 95% in the rural
areas and 57% in the cities during the eighties) foreclosed and doomed their future

(Chahrazad 40-1).

20

In contrast with colonial feminism's uniform perception of the veil as a marker of
Muslim women's oppression and the radical difference of Islam, the veil in Merrrissi's
The Veil and the Male Elite (1991), emerges as a shifting yet situated signifier. Locating
the "veil" in its socio-historical context, Memissi explains that the "veil" or hijab is a
three-dimensional word in Arabic:

The three dimensions often blend into one another. The first

dimension is a visual one: to hide something from sight. The root

of the verb hajaba means "to hide." The second dimension is

spatial: to separate, to mark a border, to establish a threshold. And

finally, the third dimension is ethical: it belongs to the reahn of the

forbidden. A space hidden by a hijab is a forbidden space. (93)
In the "Sura of the Veil," Merrrissi writes, the hijab designates the House of the Prophet
as a space visually and morally forbidden:

0 ye who believe! Enter not the dwellings of the Prophet for a

meal without waiting for the proper time, unless permission be

granted you. But if ye are invited, enter, and, when your meal is

ended, then disperse. Linger not for conversation. Lo! that would

cause annoyance to the Prophet, and he would be shy of (asking)

you (to go); but Allah is not shy of the truth. And when ye ask of

them (the wives of the Prophet) anything, ask it of them from

behind a curtain. That is purer for your hearts and for their hearts.

(35)
In Sufi philosophy, the hijab is a negative signifier which means "an obstacle that
prevents one from seeing God" (96). In contrast with Muhammad's life where there was
a "spatial intimacy between the mosque" and Aisha's apartment (111) and therefore
between women and politics, during the reign of the Ummayad Caliph Mu'awiya (94), a
hijab was erected to separate women from politics and the Caliph from his people. The
hijab of the Prince, according to Memissi is "the curtain behind which the caliphs and

kings sat to avoid the gaze of members of their court" (94). Contrasting the common

view that Islam is incompatible with democracy, Memissi argues that the early Islamic

21

period was democratic because of its inclusion of women and because of the absence of
barriers (hijab) between the Prophet and his community.

Memissi's reformist feminism lies especially in her strategic re-examination of the
hadith. Her analysis of the hadith is subversive because al—fiqh ("the science of
explaining religion") is a male field that traditionally excludes women. Following
Benazir Bhutto's election as a Prime Minister in Pakistan in 1988, the Islamist groups
argued that a woman leader is a bida', that is to say, an innovation that is alien to Islam.
To support their claim, they brandished al-Bukhari's hadith, according to which Abu
Bakra heard the Prophet say: "Those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never
know prosperity" (The Veil and the Male Elite 49). Using the same methodology as the
male recorders, notably al-Bukhari, al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Sad, and al-Baghdadi, Menrissi
makes a distinction between the sahih and mawdhu' ("true" and "false") hadith by
investigating the credibility of everyone listed in the hadith's chain of transmitters. She
then proceeds to investigate Abu Bakra's biography as well as the historical context when
the hadith was recorded. According to Memissi, Abu Bakra opportunistically
remembered that hadith--twenty—five years after Muhammad's death (53)--after the Battle
of the Camel where A'r'sha was defeated by Ali, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law.
Because he "had refused to take part in the civil war" (53) against Aisha, Abu Bakra
fabricated that hadith after the war to protect himself against Ali's clan. Digging into
Abu Bakra's biography, she discovers that al-Bukhari should have rejected that hadith,
because Abu Bakra was convicted and flogged for providing a false testimony in an
adultery trial during the reign of Umar Ibn al-Khattab (60-1). In using "the principles of

Malik for fiqh" (61), she simultaneously shows how the sacred has been manipulated by

22

Muslim patriarchy and endorses, through the example she provides, women's active
participation in the project of reforming the Shari 'a laws. '

Whereas in the Orientalist narrative of Lord Cromer "Islam degraded" (Leila
Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate 153) (1992)
women through "veiling" and "segregation," in Memissi's feminist narrative, Islam
improved women's lives, by banishing the Jahilia practice of female infanticide and

underscoring women's right to inheritance:

Not only would a woman no longer be "inherited" like camels and
palm trees, but she would herself inherit. She would enter into
competition with men for the sharing of fortunes: "Unto the men
(of a family) belongeth a share of that which parents and near
kindred leave, and unto the women a share of that which parents
and near kindred leave, whether it be little or much--a legal share."
This little verse had the effect of a bombshell among the male
population of Medina, who found themselves for the first time in
direct, personal conflict with the Muslim god. Before this verse,
only men were assured the right of inheritance in Arabia, and
women were usually part of the inherited goods. (The Veil and the
Male Elite 120)

In contrast with Ahmed who claims that the veiling of Muhammad's wives is a
logical continuity to the pattern of male domination that started to emerge in Arabia
during the rise of Islam (Women and Gender in Islam 33), Memissi asserts that
Muhammad's ideal of social and gender equality constitutes a break with the Jahilia pre-
Islarnic practices. Women's participation in war, their right to "gain booty," and "to have
a say with regard to the sex act" overthrew "the pre-Islarnic--relations between men and
women" (The Veil and the Male Elite 130). However, the strong male opposition to

Islam's ideal of gender equality--as exemplified by Umar Ibn al-Khattab and the

Medinese hypocriteszupushed Muhammad to abandon these ideals in order to guarantee

23

the survival of the new religion. Digging into Muhammad's biography, Memissi also
shows how his wives participated in war, entered the mosque, asked him for marriage
(like his first wife Khadija) and even repudiated him as in the cases of Mulaika Bint
Ka'ab and Fatima Bint al-Dahhak (Beyond the Veil 52-3) (1985). In her effort to bring
about legislation that is favorable to women, Memissi strategically invents a Muhammad
who has neither the divine-like status he is given in Orthodox Islam, nor is marred by the
sensuality and pedophilia of Mahound, the protagonist of Sahnan Rushdie's The Satanic
Verses. In her reconstruction of Muhammad's biography, Memissi shows that his
strength lies in his love, not aggression, towards women. Commenting on the split
between Muhammad's teaching3 and his fatal attraction to women's beauty, she writes:

It should be noted here that the Muslim Prophet's heroism does not

lie in any relation of aggression, conquest, or exercise of brute

force against women, but on the contrary in his vulnerability [. . .] It

is because he is vulnerable, and therefore human, that his example

has exerted such power over generations of believers. (Beyond the
Veil 57)

II) Memissi's Islamic Feminism: Between Conformity and Resistance

A closer examination of Memissi's writings reveals not only resistance to, but also
conformity with the Orientalist and Islamic discourses on the Muslim woman. Memissi's
feminist reinvention of the "Muslim woman" illustrates what De Lauretis calls the
feminist subject's double position "inside and outside the ideology of gender, and
conscious of being so" (10). Even though it is presented as a multiple signifier, the veil
in Memissi's writings is quite often associated with the perpetuation of gender inequality.

Reversing the equation of the veil with Islamic identity maintained today by the Islamist

24

groups and in the past by Arab nationalists, Memissi reinvents the hijab as an obstacle to
democracy and to the "true" meaning of Islam. According to Memissi, Islam's egalitarian
project was compromised when Muhammad, because of his military difficulties,
complied with the wishes of the hypocrites and secluded his wives:
In a city on the brink of civil war, in which the number of the
Hypocrites had increased dangerously since the siege, the anti-
slave-holding policy that Islam sought to promote was officially
abandoned--at least as far as women were concerned. Since the
security of all, including slaves, could no longer be assured,
protection would be limited to those who were free. And the hijab
incamates, expresses, and symbolizes this oflicial retreat from the
principle of equality. Symbolically, regression on social equality
became entangled and implicated in regression on sexual equality
in the case of the female slave. The hijab/curtain descended on
them both, mingling and confusing the two ideas in the
consciousness of Muslims during the fifteen centmies that
followed. (The Veil and the Male Elite [the italics are my
emphasis] 179)
Thus, in responding to the "internal" or Islamist threat, Memissi falls within the
modernist view that associates the veil with oppression and links women's emancipation
with unveiling. Echoing Qassim Amin and other Arab nationalists, Memissi associates
unveiling with cultural survival and progress. Examining the history of Moroccan
women's emancipation, she writes that King Muhammad V "puzzled the entire country in
1943 when he presented his daughter, Princess Aisha, unveiled before the nation" (155).
Unlike Memissi, who holds an uncritical attitude towards Qassim Amin, the father of
Egyptian feminism, Ahmed argues that Amin's advocacy of women's liberation through
unveiling, rather than higher education, derives from the Western construction of the veil,

"the marker of cultural difference" (Women and Gender in Islam 160-61), as a symbol of

Islam's inferiority. Echoing Frantz Fanon's discourse on the cultural alienation of the

25

national bourgeoisie, Ahmed writes that it is the upper class status and the French
education of Qassim Amin, Doria Shafik, Mai Ziada, and Huda Sha'rawi that make them
conceive of Muslim women's emancipation only through the unveiling of their bodies.
The Arabic narrative of resistance, whereby the veil becomes the symbol of Arab Islamic
identity, is written by feminists who did not have a Western education. For example,
even though she is a member of the upper-middle class, Malak Hifni Nassef's traditional
education made her oppose the emancipation of Egyptian women after the Western
model (179). Ahmed shows that the current Islamic dress, al-ziyy al-Islami, is not a fixed
code of dressing, but a pastiche of modern and old dress codes (220-21).

Armed with recent sociological studies, Ahmed demonstrates that most of the
women who wear the Islamic dress today are from families where other women are
already veiled (Women and Gender in Islam 222); belong to the new middle classes who
recently migrated to the urban areas (221); and are the first generation of women in their
family to enter a "sexually integrated world" (223). In contrast with Memissi's feminist
construction of the hijab as a negative signifier, Ahmed argues that Islamic dress has to
be reconceived as a sign of "educational and professional upward mobility" and "a
practical coping strategy, enabling women to negotiate in the new world while affirming
the traditional values of their upbringing" (223). Whereas colonial feminism views
Muslim women's return to Islam as detrimental to their interests in the long run, the
"activities being pursued by some veiled women, such as reclaiming of the right to attend
prayer in mosques," seem to support the view that "some veiled women are to some
extent challenging the practices of establishment Islam with respect to women" (228).

Ahmed concludes that the division between secular and Islamic feminisms reflects the

26

dichotomy between elitist and "grass-root feminism" and the "urban-rural divisions of
society" (225).

Thus, it is the double privilege of class and Western education that allows
Memissi to speak on behalf of all Moroccan women and equate women's emancipation
with unveiling. As in Western colonial feminism, the veil in Merrrissi's writings is seen
as a symbol of female oppression. Even though she talks about the history of the veil in
Sufi philosophy, she does not examine wearing of the veil in Morocco as a class issue. In
her recent visit to Morocco, the American feminist Elizabeth Wamock Femea observes
that the issue of women's emancipation in Morocco is primarily a question of class and
social status (88). In Morocco, Femea discovers in contrast with what she hears about
Moroccan women in Westem mass media that there are Moroccan women judges,
university professors, and others elected in Parliament (In Search of Islamic Feminism:
One Woman's Global Journey 72) (1998), yet most of them come from the upper and
middle classes of Moroccan society.

In Memissi's autobiographical work, Dreams of Trespass, women's seclusion is
presented as both anachronistic and alien to Islam. As Memissi's cousin Chama explains,
the harems were adopted from the Byzantines in the Middle Ages. At that time power
meant the conquest of territory and women, but the rules of the game have changed
today:

While the Arabs were busy locking women behind doors, the
Romans and the other Christians got together and decided to
change the rules of the power game in the Mediterranean.
Collecting women, they declared, was not relevant anymore. From
now on, the sultan would be the one who could build the most
powerful weapons and machines, including firearms and big ships.

But the Romans and other Christians decided not to tell the Arabs
about the change; they would keep it a secret so as to surprise

27

them. So the Arabs went to sleep, thinking that they knew the
rules of the power game. (44-5)

Memissi's concept of "chronopolitics" which she uses to describe "Islamic
fundamentalism's" attempt to turn the clocks into Haroun a1 Rachid's time seems
objectionable on two grounds. First, because in reducing the problem of "Islamic
fundamentalism" to a clash between the Middle Ages and modernity, Memissi falls not
only within the binarism characterizing the Islamist thought, but also the Eurocentric
evolutionary understanding of time. Indeed, Memissi's concept of "chronopolitics" is
based on the same dichotomy between tradition and modernity that we find in the
writings of Amin, the Westem-educated Egyptian feminist who equates the wearing of
the veil with the backwardness of Islamic tradition. In Maps of Englishness (1996),
Simon Gikandi traces the dichotomy between tradition and modernity to the European
modernist discourse, when "the invocation of colonial alterity," the dismantling of the old
social fabric, combined with the racial anxieties "about what constitutes Englishness"
(228) led to the invention of a pure European tradition. As Gikandi argues, the concept
of tradition which African nationalist leaders like Nkrumah or Kenyatta have deployed to
assert African identity derives "its moral authority from its association with [the]
bourgeois civility" (Gikandi 227) exemplified in the writings of TS. Eliot. As a parallel,
Memissi's perception of the veil does not seem locally generated, but imposed by her
elite status and acquaintance with Western culture.

The second objection to Memissi's concept of "chronopolitics" is that Islamic
tradition, to use Jean-Loup Amselle's words, is "an exclusively contemporary conflict,
that of fundamentalists speaking in the name of tradition while simultaneously projecting

current ideological models into the past" (Mestizo Logics 3). Memissi herself explains

28

the problem of Islamic fundamentalism and the oppression of women by the lack of
democracy and the increasing rate of poverty, unemployment, and neocolonialism in
countries like Morocco (Beyond the Veil 149, 163).

Two related problems arise here: first, how can Memissi reduce the problem of
fundamentalism to a clash between tradition and modernity while claiming that
fundamentalism is caused by the contemporary problems of poverty, unemployment, and
neocolonialism? Second, how can she attack Islamic tradition while relying on that same
patriarchal concept to invent women's rights in Morocco? Memissi's re-authentication of
Islamic tradition ought to be conceived along the lines of Bhabha's view that tradition is
an ongoing process of negotiation, subjected to the current hegemonic configurations of
power. In "restagingthe past," Memissi's contradictions illustrate what Bhabha calls "the
power of tradition to be reinscribed through the conditions of contingency and
contradictoriness that attend upon the lives of those who are 'in the minority'" (The
Location of Culture 2).

Quite problematic indeed is Memissi’s criticism of Islamic tradition and reliance
on the authority of the hadith to bring about women's rights in Moroccan society. In her
re-authentification of the hadith, Memissi ascribes to herself the authority of the Muslim
male elite who have the power to distinguish between the false and true hadith. Rather
than deconstructing or destabilizing the religious authority of the hadith, Memissi
reinforces the Law of the Muslim Father she is criticizing. She does nothing but reverse
the terms of that Muslim symbolic: to the Law of the Muslim Father, she substitutes the

Law of the Muslim Mother.

29

Not least significant is Memissi's ambivalence towards the notion of "truth." In
Beyond the Veil (1975)--written in French even before Said's 0rientalism--Memissi
reiterates the Foucauldian suspicion towards truth and certainty:

My modest aim in this research is not to irritate the reader
by claiming to have uncovered the truth about the new
male-female dynamics that has emerged in modem
Moroccan society. I leave the truth to those who seek
certainty. My own feeling is that we move forward faster
and live better when we seek doubt [...] The qualitative
analysis is not intended to flood the reader with statistical
truths, which are in any case at anyone's disposal at the
offices of 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 number of walking dead may not appreciate
that. (94)

Whether her reinvention of the Muslim woman is truthful or not, Memissi could care
less; as she puts it herself, she left truth for those who seek certainty (Beyond the Veil 94).
However, throughout her writings, Memissi presents her reinvention of early Muslim
society and the ideal of gender equality in Muhammad's time as the truth that has been
hidden or "veiled" by the Muslim male elite. Memissi's re-authentification of the hadith--
a strategy within the very system she opposes—paradoxically endorses the notion of truth
from which the hadith derives its authority and hence, reinforces the power of tradition to
reinscribe and perpetuate itself.

Even though her distinction between true and false hadith is phallocentric,
Memissi's feminist revision of Islamic tradition is strategically deployed to provide a
common basis for feminist mobilization in Moroccan society. The contradictions in the
Islamic feminism of Memissi also stem from the double bind to protect the rights of
"Muslim women" against the rising Islamist or "internal" threat and to respond to the

increasingly anti-Islamic feeling in the West (the external threat). To put it differently,

30

Memissi's feminist construction of the "Muslim woman" is subjected to "two levels of
articulation": a "comparison/competition" on the "interna " level, and a
"comparison/competition at the international level " (Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial
Studies 159).

Even though Memissi emphasizes the diversity of Moroccan women's
experiences, this diversity is still based on the exclusion of illiterate men and women and
the Berber speaking population of Morocco, who are denied not only access to ancient
Arabic sources, but more importantly, a position from which to speak and legislate laws
on behalf of Muslim women. The rhetoric of diversity, as Scott Michaelsen puts it, is
thus "a theory of assimilation grounded upon a fundamental exclusion, an exclusion so
thoroughly buried it goes virtually unnoticed, almost unread" (Border Theory: The Limits
of Cultural Politics 23) (1997). Thus, it is the privileges of class, race, and education
which give Memissi the power to re-authenticate the hadith, compete with male religious

authorities like a1 Bukhari, and speak on behalf of the Moroccan "Muslim woman."

III) A North African Oedipus? Beyond the Reification of Culture

Another problem in Memissi's feminist reinvention of the "Muslim woman" is her
assumption of a homogeneous oppressive Islamic culture. Comparing the Western and
Islamic perceptions of female sexuality, Memissi claims that in contrast with the model
of passive female sexuality in Freud's theory, the entire Muslim social structure is an
attack on, and a defense against the disruptive power of female sexuality. For instance,
the eleventh century theologian, al—Ghazali (1058-1111) sees civilization as a struggle to

contain women's destructive power or fitna ("chaos") (Beyond the Veil 31). Societies, he

31

says, prosper only if we create institutions that foster male dominance through sexual
segregation. Memissi's claim that the teachings of al-Ghazali determine the male-female
dynamics in contemporary Muslim society is problematic for many reasons. First,
Memissi ignores those teachings in al-Ghazali's Ihya' Ulum al Din or The Revivication of
Islam,4 which are not detrimental to women. Despite his obvious and undeniable
misogyny, al-Ghazali's recommendation for the Muslim man to engage in foreplay and be
preoccupied with his wife's sexual pleasure is very advanced for his century:
Let him proceed with gentle words and kisses. The Prophet
said, "Let none of you come upon his wife like an animal, and let
there be an emissary between them." He was asked, "What is this

emissary, O Messenger of God?" He said, "The kiss and [sweet]
wor ."

Once the husband has attained his fulfillment, let him tarry
until his wife also attains hers. Her orgasm (inzal) may be delayed,
thus exciting her desire; to withdraw quickly is harmful to the
woman. Difference in the nature of [their] reaching a climax
causes discord whenever the husband ejaculates first. Congruence
in attaining a climax is more gratifying to her because the man is
not preoccupied with is his own pleasure, but rather with hers; for
it is likely that the woman might be shy. (Madelain Farah,
Marriage and Sexuality in Islam 106-07)

The second problem with Memissi's analysis is her "cultural mummification"
(Bhabha, The Location of Culture 78) of Moroccan society and of the Islamic world in
general. Unlike Ahmed, who focuses on the heterogeneity of Islamic tradition, its
constant change through time, and its affinities with the J udeo-Christian traditions,
Memissi's construction of Islamic tradition seems based on a closed and localized notion
of culture. By positing a total cultural break between Jahilia and Islam, Memissi
reproduces the Islamist originary narrative locating the origin of culture and civilization
in the early years of Islam. As Harrow puts it, culture is to be viewed as a process of

"contestation" ("Shibboleths in the Production of Culture"), rather than something

32

confined within some established geographical borders. Memissi never questions the
paradigm fi'om which this so-called "Moroccan Islamic culture" is assumed to be present
and already operating. Rather than positing an originary Islamic Moroccan culture that
is oppressive to women, women's condition in Morocco has to be examined in view of a
syncretic5 Mediterranean patriarchal culture (Amselle 161), for the boundaries between
the crescent and the cross, between the southern Muslim shore of the Mediterranean and
the northern Christian side have constantly been fluid and shifting. For instance, the
history of the renegade population in North Afiica points not simply to the cultural
exchange which must have inevitably occurred between the northern and southern bank
of the Mediterranean, but more importantly, to the invention of North Africa as Europe's
Muslim Other.

Memissi's view on love in Muslim society raises another theoretical problem:
how solid is any claim that bases social practice on an authoritative text, especially a text
from the eleventh century? To claim that al-Ghazali's teachings have determined
women's condition and rights in Morocco presumes that Moroccan society is culturally
reified and frozen. Also, Memissi's claim that the entire Muslim order condemns love
between a man and a woman, and a husband and his wife presupposes a homogeneous
misogynistic Islamic tradition with no internal antagonistic or contradictory elements.
Ibn Hazm's (994-1064) The Ring of the Dove; A Treatise on the Art and Practice of Arab
Love, for instance, undermines Memissi's claim that Islamic legal discourse condemns
love between a man and a woman. Just as Montaigne's and de Courtois's defense of the
arranged marriage serve to protect the aristocratic blood line, the "Muslim order's" attack

33

on love needs to be historicized as a defense of the practice of endogamy which existed
not just in Morocco, but in Southern Europe, especially in Italy, Greece, and F rance.6

Throughout her writings, Memissi presents Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic
patriarchy as essentially male. The two women's marches, which took place in Morocco
on 12 March 2000, show that the Islamist movement is not always male. Whereas the
Rabat demonstration was led by the feminists who supported the plan of Said Saadi, the
Moroccan Secretary of State, who wanted to reform al Mudawana (the Moroccan
family/Shari'a laws), the Casablanca march was led on the same day by the Islanrist
sisters, who believed that the abolition of polygamy, the banning of unilateral divorce,
and women's right to get married without their parents' consent were innovations alien
and contrary to the teachings of Islam (Ahmed R. Benchemsi, "Maroc: minijupes contre
tchadors," Jeune Afrique 34-7). Memissi's reading of the veil as a universal symbol of
female oppression, reveals how her upper-class social background separates her from the
lower class Moroccan women, who wear the veil to engage in public activities they
would otherwise be denied. Furthermore, Memissi's distinction between the Muslim
exploitation of the female body through seclusion and veiling and the exploitation of
women through the commodification of their bodies in the West does not apply to all the
classes and all the Muslim countries (Beyond the Veil 167).

Memissi's use of Freudian theory as a universal model to analyze the psyche of
Muslim societies is quite problematic. Ignoring the revisions of Freud's theory done by
Lacan and Kristeva, Memissi reads Freud in literal rather than symbolic terms. Memissi
makes the claim that all Muslim men display symptoms of a Oedipus complex, i.e.,

obsession with the mother and hatred for the wife: "In Muslim societies not only is the

34

marital bond weakened and love for the wife discouraged, but his mother is the only
woman a man is allowed to love at all, and this love is encouraged to take the form of
life-long gratitude" (Beyond the Veil 121). She also ignores the implications of applying
the European construct of the Name of the Father to non-Western societies where the
Name of the Father does not necessarily involve the biological father. In Oedipe
Africain, Marie Cécile and Edmond Ortigues write that the Oedipus complex rather than
being universal is always mediated through local culture. During their clinical practice
in Dakar from 1962-1966 (120), these two French psychoanalysts "found out that the
mental illnesses of their patients are related to certain aspects of Western African culture
and basic tenets" (Hortense Spillers, "All the Things You Could Be by Now: If Sigmund
Freud's Wife Was Your Mother: Psychoanalysis and Race" 122). In the West African
context, the Oedipus myth is "a structure of relations" (139): the Father is "a function"
rather than a "progenitor" (139) and "the youth... does not imagine killing the father but
must be referred to the ancestors through him" (136). Memissi's claim that all men in
Muslim societies suffer from a Oedipus complex is not only totalizing--as it assumes "a
singular patriarchal kinship system [common to all Arab and Muslim societies, i.e., over
twenty different countries] " (Mohanty 204)--but also recalls the reductionist tendency in
Western feminist scholarship to analyze the "Muslim woman" as victim of a
homogeneous Islamic patriarchal family system in the Middle East. Moreover,
Memissi's statement that the Muslim order perceives the Muslim woman as the enemy
within and the Christian West as the enemy without is not relevant solely to Islamic
culture, but to all said patriarchal cultures.7 Once again, because of the double privilege

of class and education, Memissi was able to combine the authority of the Muslim

35

theologian with that of the Western psychoanalyst, to unlock the mysteries of "Islamic
memory" and investigate "the consciousness of Muslims" over the last "fifteen centuries"
(The Veil and the Male Elite 179).

As demonstrated in this chapter, the Islamic feminism of Memissi, far from being
ethnocentric, uses Freudian, historicist and post-structuralist approaches to her feminist
reconstruction of Islam. Despite her essentialist construction of the West and the Muslim
world, her reinvention of the early Muslim women is strategic in that it destabilizes the
authority of legalistic Islam and in reforming the Shari 'a laws. Subverting Islamic
patriarchy's claim that "women are deficient in mind and faith," Memissi uses the Islamic
concept of al-ijtihad (independent juristic reasoning) to revise and historicize the
misogynistic hadith held as insurmountable obstacles to Muslim women's emancipation.
Unlike Judith Butler,8 who locates political agency in subverting the dominant
phallocentric discourse, "Third World" feminists like Memissi are committed to effect
social and economic change through the interrnediacy of the state, i.e., they want to
involve the government in enacting laws that guarantee women's education and their
equal access to economic and social privileges.

Memissi, is one of the Arab feminists, who, to use Ahmed's words, "hears the
voice of ethical Islam," and for whom there is no contradiction between Islam and
democracy or Islam and secularism.9 As Memissi puts it: "The democratic glorification
of the human individual, regardless of sex, race, or status, is the kernel of the Muslim
message" (Beyond the Veil 19). This is why she argues later in the book that democracy
starts in the domestic space not in parliaments:

I have in mind rather the relations we establish with the people
closest to us, with whom we share the greatest interests and weave

36

the most intense and most intimate human relations in a domain
considered non-political, like the household (in which life's
essential functions are enacted: eating, sleeping, love-making), to
seek it in the high ground for democracy, the party cell or the
parliamentary chamber. (95-6)

Finally, both Memissi's reliance on the Shari 'a law and defensive claims that
there is no discrepancy between Islam and democracy, that Islam elevated women's status
far more than any other religion, recall the attacks on secularism and modernism by
Muslim extremists, for whom Bourguiba's secular politics such as the closing of the
Zaytuna Mosque and the abolition of the veil and polygamy, exemplify the barbarity of
the civil or secular state. Thus, Mernissis's Islamic feminist agenda risks being co-opted
by the Islamist groups to deny North Afiican women the rights they already enjoy under

the "secular" state.

 

‘ I shall discuss later in this chapter the division between tradition and modernity in the writings of
Memissi and Ahmed.

2 According to Memissi, the hypocrites are a powerful group of Medinese, who, threatened by
Muhammad's egalitarian project--such as his stand on slavery and prostitution, women's right to inheritance
and booty (The Veil and the Male Elite l31)--had invented the story of Aisha's affair with Safwan (178),
and harassed Muhammad's wives in public (180). As a result, Muhammad was pushed to comply with
their wishes by veiling his wives. This demarcation between the veiled and the unveiled woman sanctioned
the harassment of the "unveiled woman," and protected thus the hypocrites' lucrative trade in slave-
prostitution. Even though Memissi explains Muhammad's failure to abolish slavery by the strong male
opposition to Islam's ideal of gender and racial equality, she never tackles the problem of Non-Muslim
slaves in early Islam.

3 Even though he says women should be married for their religion, the women Muhammad married were
chosen for their beauty rather than their faith. See Fatima Memissi, Beyond the Veil: Male Female
Dynamics in Muslim Society (London: Al Saqi books, 1985) 54.

4 I am using here Memissi's translation of the Arabic title Ihya' 'Ulum al Din. The exact date when al
Ghazali wrote this monumental work is unknown. Subsequent quotations fiom a1 Ghazali are from
Madelain Farah's translation of some essays in Ihya, published under Marriage and Sexuality in Islam.

5 Louise Shapiro's Breaking the Codes: Female Criminality in F in-de-Sie‘cle Paris suggests that the
patriarchies on both sides of the Mediterranean seem to have reached a consensus as to what a wormm's
role and place in society should be. "Blaming the fall of Rome on women's emancipation," Camille
Ducreux, a Parisian lawyer, argued that a woman's natural place is home, not politics: "The Greek hid his
wife in the gyne'cée, the Roman placed her under the guard of two lares (domestic spirits), the Moslem
enclosed her in his harem, our society shelters her under the protective roof of the home" (Shapiro 187).
Dr. Toulouse, another French expert in "la science intersexuelle" made the claim that in mental institutions

37

 

women sought "solitude more than men did." They "naturally" want to be left alone, "a bit as a recluse in
the home" (Shapiro 187). As a matter of fact al-Ghazali's The Revivication of Islam bears many similarities
with the medieval moral treaties like The Goodman of Paris (1393) which urged women to seek the safety
of the home (James F. McMillan, Housewife or Harlot 9). The early Church Fathers and the Catholic
Church also warned men against what al-Ghazali calls fitna i.e., "chaos" or "women's power of seduction."
The Abbe de Gibergues cautioned his male congregation that "the devil makes use of women to ruin men
by seducing them" (McMillan 9-10). Jean Jacques Rousseau--the father of French humanism--has also
recommended women's seclusion in harems similar to those erected by the "Persians, the Greeks, the
Romans, the Egyptians” (Letter to D'Alembert 8: 89).

6 Moreover, in sixteenth and seventeenth century France, many writers warned people against the dangers
of marrying for love. For instance, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) wrote that one must marry not for
love, but for the sake of family line. In Le Livre de famille, Antoine de Courtois (1762-1828) defended
arranged marriages because parents knew what was best for their children's interests (McMillan 31). It
would be very naive, indeed, to conclude based on the authority of the two above texts that French society
condemns love between a man and a woman, and a husband and his wife. The very fact that Montaigne,
and de Courtois attacked love, proves that romantic love did exist in their time.

7 Rick Lazio's attack on Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2000 New York senate election as an agent of
Islamic terrorism for receiving a $50,000 campaign donation from a Muslim group, and Hilary's subsequent
return of this "tainted money" after conceding that all Muslims are terrorists, ironically reveals how
Christian patriarchy, despite its claim that Western women's emancipation is a model for the "Muslim
woman," still perceives the "Christian woman" as the enemy within and Islam as the enemy without.

8 In Excitable Speech, Judith Butler opposes pushing the state to legislate hate crime laws, because in
depending on the government to protect them, gays, lesbians and bisexuals risk being overpowered by the
state, undermining thus their own authority and political agency.

9 In Women and Gender in Islam, Ahmed does not discuss thoroughly the issue of Islam and democracy as
Memissi does in Islam and Democracy and Beyond the Veil. '

38

Chapter Two: Isabelle, ou "La Roumia Convertie": A Case Study in Female

Orientalism

I) Isabelle Eberhardt: An Introduction

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) was a European woman who traveled throughout
the Maghreb disguised as an Arab man at the turn of the nineteenth century. She was the
daughter of Nathalie Eberhardt, wife of General Paul de Moerder, a Russian of noble
birth, and officer of the Tsar's imperial army. Mme de Moerdre eloped to Switzerland
with her children’s tutor, Alexander Trophimowsky, a Russian priest who later became
an anarchist. He is believed to Eberhardt’s father even though he never acknowledged
she was his daughter.1 Because of her upbringing, Eberhardt mastered both Russian and
French. Later on, Trophimowsky taught her Arabic, which paved the way for her
fascination with Islamic mysticism. In 1897, she sailed with her mother to Tunisia where
they officially converted to Islam. After her mother’s death, she shocked the French
colonial authorities in Tunisia and Algeria by her addiction to kif and alleged sexual
promiscuity with both Arab men and the French soldiers stationed in North Africa. Her
masquerade as Si Mahmoud Essadi as well as her "scandalous" marriage with an Arab
man, Slimene Ehnni, threatened the racial hierarchy underlying French North Africa. In
1901, she was expelled from North Africa by the French authorities alter a fanatic
member of the Tidjanya order tried to assassinate her, partly because of her affiliation
with another rival religious brotherhood, the Qadiriya. The French authorities deemed
her presence to be dangerous for the colonial law and order (In the Shadow of Islam 8)
(1993). In October 1901, her husband was transferred to Marseilles where he and his

wife Eberhardt married this time in a French civil ceremony. Once a French citizen,

39

Eberhardt was able to return to North Africa. This time, however, she was recruited by
General Hubert Lyautey as an informant. Her journey to Kenadsa (Morocco) and her
meeting with the Qadiriya leaders gave her invaluable information that she would later
submit to the French authorities (In the Shadow of Islam 10). Eberhardt’s career came to
an end when she tragically died during the floods that struck Ain Sefra (Algeria) in 1904.
General Lyautey found the manuscripts she was working on in an urn. He sent them to
Victor Barrucand,2 who revised Eberhardt's “Sud-Oranais” stories and published them in
1920 under the present title (In the Shadow of Islam 13).

Eberhardt's writings cannot be understood without being located in the context of
the French presence in North Afiica, the prevalent nineteenth century gender ideology in
France, and Eberhardt's personal history. This chapter examines Eberhardt's oeuvre--
namely, Ecrits intimes (1991), In the Shadow of Islam, Ecrits sur le sable (1988),
Departures (1994), The Passionate Nomad (1987), The Oblivion Seekers (1972), and
Rakhil (1990)--as a case of female Orientalism. My objective here is not just to provide a
corrective to Said's silence on female Orientalism, but more importantly, to determine
whether occidental women share the biases of their countrymen during the colonial
encounter.

In Women's Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-1918 (1992),
Billie Melman argues that unlike the uniform and authoritative discourse on the "Muslim
woman" in Said's discussion of male Orientalism, the representation of the Oriental
woman was not unified in female Orientalism. Melman argues "that the discourse about
things Oriental was polyphonic and that the experience of the eastern Mediterranean was

heterogeneous and [not only] political" (3) as Said claims. Along the lines of Melrnan's

40

criticism, this chapter contends that Eberhardt's construction of the "Muslim woman" as a
prostitute/Saint reveals a split within "the subject of colonial enunciation" (Bhabha 72).
One major claim in this chapter is that the production of the "Muslim woman" in
Eberhardt's writings depends on the location of the author within the apparatus of power,
which informs both her colonial subjectivity and her ideological construction of the Other
Without. I will be using Eberhardt's own expression, "la roumia convertie" ("the
converted non-Muslirn woman") to discuss the antagonistic sites of enunciation she
occupies while negotiating her social, sexual, and racial identity. In contrast with
Bhabha's presentation of the hybrid as androcentric, my analysis of "la roumia convertie"
as a metaphor for the articulation of identity and difference shows that the hybrid is
always gendered. This chapter also argues that the Third Republic's views on women's
roles and Eberhardt's double allegiance to the bourgeois feminism of Maria Deraismes,
and the radical feminism of the Saint Simonians and Hubertine Auclert, have a strong
bearing on her reinvention of the Muslim woman as a prostitute/Saint. This chapter also
makes the claim that Eberhardt, while reproducing the male Orientalist stereotypes about
the "Muslim woman," transforms them to criticize the ideal of domesticity in fin-de—
siécle European society. In relocating the harem on the road, Eberhardt not only
redefines the seraglio genre found in male Orientalism, but also subverts the
domestication and desexualization of the harem by nineteenth century women travelers in
the Middle East.

Eberhardt's writings are both complicit with and resistant to the French imperial

ideology. Eberhardt is not unique, however, in presenting the colonial female subject's

position as inside/outside the hegemonic discourse of empire. In Imperial Eyes ( 1992),

41

Mary Louise Pratt shows how Flora Tristan, the French socialist feminist, while relying
on the "linear emplotrnent of conquest narrative" (157), created in Peru a "feminotopia,"
i.e., "an idealized world of female autonomy, empowerment and pleasure" (166-67). In
Maps of Englishness, Gikandi also examines the "ambivalent interpellation" (47) in Mary
Seacole's Wonderful Adventures (West Indies) and Mary Kingsley's Travels in West
Africa towards the British imperial project. Joining Pratt, Gikandi argues that "because it
seems fi'ee of the gender ideologies that constrain white women in the metropolis, the
imperial field was construed as a social space for freedom and fulfillment" (144). In
opposition to Pratt and Gikandi, in her analysis of Olive Schreiner's writings about South
Africa, Anne McClintock focuses on Schreiner's rebellious feminism and de-emphasizes
her racist attitudes towards Blacks (Imperial Leather 258-95) (1995).

In Women's Orients, Melman notes that Western women's writing about the
Middle East is essentially "a middle class activity" that coincides with the rise of the
European colonial powers and collapse of the Ottoman empire (32). In the Maghreb, the
Turkish Empire encompassed Tunisia and Algeria, but did not extend to Morocco. In the
nineteenth century, the ties of these colonies with Turkey became quite loose, as Algeria
and Tunisia gradually overthrew the indirect rule of Istanbul and placed themselves under
the direct rule of the native Deys (Algeria) and the Beys (Tunisia). Eberhardt's
peregrinations in the Maghreb could not have been possible if "the Old Sick Man" hadn't
lost its grip on North Africa, paving the way for the French capture of Algiers in 1832

and Tunisia in 1881.

42

II) The Female Imperial Subject under the Third Republic: An Overview of
Colonial History and Gender Ideology in Nineteenth Century France

In colonial Algeria, the French pursued two policies: association and assimilation.
Given the fact that the French and the Algerian population belonged to two different
racial stocks in the colonial view, the anti-assimilationists argued that the cultural gap
between the two societies could never be bridged (Jean-Pierre Biondi, Les
Anticolonialistes 1881—1962 31). Even though the policy of assimilation depended on the
complicity of the native rulers and administrators, it was based on a notion of partnership
which did not exist given the inequality inherent in any relation between a colonizer and
a colonized society (Elizabeth Ezra The Colonial Unconscious 6). The associationist
policy was first put into practice by Napoleon III, who stated in an 1860 speech in
Algiers, that France "will take care of the happiness of these millions of Arabs, improve
their existence, elevate them to the dignity of free men, spread education among them
while respecting their religion." "France," he insisted, "[did] not have the right to
transform the indigenous population of North Africa into F rench" (Charles-Robert
Ageron, France Coloniale ou Parti Colonial? 192).

This associationist policy was also championed by General Hubert Lyautey, who
sponsored Eberhardt's journey to Kenadsa and recruited her as an informant on the
rebellious tribes in the south. Complicit with Lyautey's policy, as early as 1902,
L'Akhbar, the weekly newspaper of Victor Barrucand and Isabelle Eberhardt, held the
slogan: 'Neither exploitation, nor assimilation, association'" (Ageron 224-25). Instead of
direct rule, Lyautey championed the protectorate system, which the French imposed on

Tunisia in 1881 and Morocco in 1912. "Instead of getting rid of the old native

43

administrators," Lyautey once explained, "We must use them to govern with the [native]
ruler, and not against" him (Ageron 211). But the colonial divide and rule policy was at
the heart of Lyautey's policy of association. In his own words:

Running a protectorate means to maintain as often as possible the

indigenous fights, to give them the direct power of the police,

administration, justice itself, tax collection, under the supervision

of one agent who resides near the native chief. It is through this

agent that the eyes of the indigenous chief and his people will be

opened to our ideas about justice. (Ageron 213)
This divide and rule policy is best illustrated in the doctrine of "pacification" Lyautey
introduced to Algeria. This policy consisted of winning one tribe after another, and with
the cooperation of the tribes he had already rallied to the side of France, he would exert
an economic boycott against those tribes hostile to French rule. In 1892, Eugene Etienne,
a member of the French Colonial Party wrote: "The question of Morocco is capital for the
security of Algeria [...] We cannot admit that another power settles there before us"
(Ageron 144). Paul Bourde, the brain of the French Colonial Party, also suggested the
necessity of a treaty with England, whereby Morocco would be exchanged for Egypt
(Ageron 145). Eberhardt's participation in the pacification of these hostile tribes who
lived near the Algerian-Moroccan border led in the long run to the colonization of
Morocco. Eberhardt's journey to Kenadsa as a liaison agent between Lyautey and her
Muslim brothers shows her complicity with the French colonial project. Including
herself in the masculine world of empire, she writes:

Very soon we [my emphasis] can hope to see accomplished, thanks

to the actions of the General and his collaborators who are as

intelligent as they are dedicated, not--as our colleague from la

Dépéche coloniale called it--"the moral conquest of the Berbers,"

but rather the pacification and economic conquest of the region.
(Departures 182)

44

The use of the collective relative pronoun "we" not only allows this Russian woman to
inscribe herself as French, but also to re-redefine French empire in non-exclusive
gendered terms. Eberhardt's description of Lyautey's collaborators as "intelligent" and
"dedicated" is a self-congratulatory statement that simultaneously underscores European
women's active participation in the project of colonialism, and Western patriarchy's
reluctance to recognize them as equal partners in the imperial field.

In contrast with association, the French policy of assimilation was based on the
principle that Algeria, being an extension of France, must have institutions similar to
those in the homeland. The French who immigrated to the colonies enjoyed their full
rights as French citizens, including "the right to be represented by an elect deputy in the
metropolitan Parliament" (Ageron 190). The theory of assimilation, by extension applied
both to the foreign settlers of European origin (mainly Spanish, Italians, Maltese, and
Sicilians) and the native Algerian population, who could theoretically be naturalized
French citizens if they were to demonstrate their love and allegiance to France. For
instance Eberhardt's Algerian husband, Slimene, obtained French citizenship after serving
in the French army for many years as a Spahi.

In 1870, assimilation became the official colonial policy of the Third Republic. It
was championed by Jules Ferry, the Prime Minister of the Third Republic, and one of the
founding fathers of the French colonial education. Despite the constant bickering
between the Royalists and the Republicans in the Ferry period, both sides seemed to
agree that "'the inferior races' could only bend down to the civilization coming from the
[North]" (Biondi 31). In an 1885 speech, Ferry, deputy of the Vosges then, gave three

reasons for the French conquest of Tunisia, Annarn, Tonkin, Congo, and part of

45

Madagascar: 1) to guarantee France's control of the world's markets and natural
resources; 2) to bring civilization to the rest of the world, because "an occidental society
like France, which has reached an elevated degree of scientific, technical, and cultural
development, has rights and duties vis a vis 'the inferior races' which have remained on
the margins of progress"; 3) and last, "to maintain France's rank in the world" (Biondi
28), especially after France's defeat in the F ranco-Prussian war (1870) and the loss of the
Alsace and the Lorraine.

Many people in France opposed the French "civilizing mission." The pacifist
economist Frédéric Passy argued that it "was a waste of French blood while Germany
was getting stronger" (29). The nationalists also disapproved of Perry's new conquests.
Paul Déroulede for instance, shouted at Ferry: "1 lost two sisters (Alsace and Lorraine)
and you offer me twenty servants!" (29). The French intellectual circles were also
divided towards Perry's imperialist policy: Whereas Alphonse Daudet, Pierre Loti, Guy
de Maupassant, Jules Valles, Leon Bloy, Séverine, and Henri Rochefort took a stand
against the project of colonization (Biondi 31-3), Emile Zola, Louis Bertrand, and George
Sand endorsed the Republic's imperialist policy and claimed that France would be
regenerated by its colonies (Ageron 96-7). Sharing the revolutionary idealism of the
Third Republic, Robert Randau, Eberhardt's friend in Algeria, also prophesized in his
fiction that France would create "an immense colonial empire in Africa without
brutalizing the population, with the simple peaceful propaganda of our kindness, without
betraying the pure traditions of our Revolution" (Ageron 69).

Eberhardt's frequent battles with the French colonial authorities have to be

contextualized within the nineteenth century gender ideology at home and in the colonies.

46

Even though French women had been working in the factories since the beginning of the
nineteenth century, both the Republicans and the Royalists in fin-de-siecle France agreed
that a woman's role was to be a mother and wife. If the ideal of the angel in the house
gained strength in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century France, it was
because of the ideological rivalry between the Catholic Church-~which lost most of its
privileges after the French Revolution--and the anti-clericals who supported the laic
Republic. According to Ferry, the Church created barriers between husbands and wives
by its tight control of girls' education. In a famous speech, he called for the "necessity of
rescuing women from the Church in order to win them to science" (McMillan 50). In the
law of 9 August 1879, Ferry made girls' primary education compulsory and announced
the creation of a training school for elementary school women teachers.

The Third Republic's preoccupation with women's roles as mothers was also
caused by the decline in France's population after the Franco Russian war. Women were
urged to stay at home and raise republican citoyens ("male citizens") till "the corrupt,
clerical, infertile Empire would be replaced by a morally regenerate, secular, and fecund
republic" (Shapiro 179). In Algeria, "it was the job of the [colonial] woman 'to create
France' wherever she went" (Julia Clancy Smith and Frances Gouda, Domesticating the
Empire: Race, Gender, and Family Life in French and Dutch Colonialism 81) (1998).
Because of the threat of racial decline, the French women, whether at home or in the
imperial field, were taught courses in child-rearing, housework, and the new science of
puériculture (infant hygiene) (Clancy Smith 81). Because of the national anxieties about
depopulation, there was naturally an increasing fear of the lesbian and the autonomous

bourgeois feminist woman, who refused to get married and have children (Shapiro 181).

47

Eberhardt's male disguise, sexual freedom, and use of the neo-Malthusian method of
contraception (Annette Kobak, Isabelle: The Life of Isabelle Eberhardt 99) (1988) did
certainly make her a dangerous non-reproductive hommesse ("masculine woman") in the
eyes of the Third Republic.

In the nineteenth century, some of the rights Muslim women enjoyed, especially
in inheritance and control of their own property in case of divorce were still denied the
French women. Decreed by Napoleon in 1804, Article 213 of the Civil Code placed the
married woman's property under the tutelage of her husband. She could not open a
business or dispose of her property without his consent (Shapiro 182-83). By
institutionalizing the "crime de passion," the Napoleonic Code allowed only the French
male to get away with the murder of his adulterous wife. Only in 1881, did French
women obtain the right to open a savings bank account without the assistance of their
husbands. Unlike the British Suffragettes, French women obtained the right to vote only
after W.W.II., because of the strong male opposition to the female vote. Reflecting the
laws in the mother country, colonial Algeria declared that only the Muslim men had the

right to vote if they were naturalized French citizens.

111) Between Complicity and Resistance: Ebehardt's Ambivalence towards the
"Muslim Woman" and the French Civilizing Mission

Even though she supported Lyautey's policy of pacification, Eberhardt was also a
firm believer in the principle of assimilation. Defending the French civilizing mission,
she tells her husband Slimene that the best way to serve Islam and the Arab nation is by

serving France:

48

Imagine that in working for the goal that I set out for you here that
you are working for all your Arab brothers, for all our Muslim
brothers. You will provide for the French gentlemen-~disdainful
and Arabophobe--the example of an Arab who, having begun as
Spahi of the second order, has raised himself to a rank envied and
respected, by his intelligence and work. If there were many such
Arabs in Algeria, the French would have been obliged to change
their minds on the subject of "dirty Arabs." That is how you must
serve Islam and the Arab nation, and not by fomenting useless and
bloody revolts which serve only as ammunition for the enemies of
all that is Arab, and not by discouraging those honest French who
would like to be brothers. (Ecrits intimes 327)3

This is contradictory not just with her support for Lyautey's policy of pacification, but
also with her defense of the Marguerite rebels and her participation in the 1899 Bone
riots (Kobak 64-5). In her diaries, Eberhardt mentioned that she would write an article in
defense of the Marguerite rebels who attacked a French garrison, but she never kept her
promise:

I may have to go to France this winter to see about writing a piece

in defense of the Marguerite rebels. 0! if I could only say

everything I know , speak my mind and come out with the whole

truth! What a good deed that would be! In due course it would

have positive results and establish my reputation too! Brieux was

certainly right about that: I must start my career by coming out

openly in defense of my Algerian Muslim brethren. (The

Passionate Nomad 100)
As the above passage suggests, Eberhardt's project of writing this article can be read not
only as a career move, but also as a sign of her genuine care for her Muslim brothers.
Because of her participation in the Bone riots, however, Eberhardt was duly recorded in
the colonial records at Constantine as a dangerous Russian woman conniving with the
natives (Kobak 65).

In a letter to Victor Barrucand, Eberhardt's friend and editor of L'Akhbar, Rosalia

Balaban Bentami4 wrote:

49

You cannot imagine how this Isabelle Eberhardt awakened
forgotten feelings in me--my unrealized dreams! I understand very
well why she idealizes the Arab and Islam so much because it's
very characteristic of the Russian soul to get carried away about
anything that's surrounded by mystery. But there is one thing that
touched me profoundly and that she passes over as if it were
unimportant--that's the life of the Arab women... she, the Russian
woman... the woman who's free as a bird, who's Bohemian, she
doesn't see a whole people, millions of women--prisoners,
deprived of the most elementary rights in the world, the right to
live, to think, to see the sun... to have respect for their personality.
If you knew, dear Sir, how I study them and how I want to cry.
(247-48)

Bentarrri's criticism of Eberhardt's silence on the Muslim woman's condition is not only
inaccurate, but also Eurocentric. Eberhardt did in fact criticize the seclusion of Muslim
women in North Afiica. She once wrote: "I am not bound at all as a Muslim woman to
wear a gandoura and a mléya and to be cloistered. These measures have been imposed
on Muslim women to prevent their possible fall and preserve their chastity." True purity,
she argued, was one which was "free and not imposed" (Ecrits intimes 79). Bentami's
own marriage to an Arab man (Kobak 247) did not deprive her of "the right to live," "to
see the sun," and to write about the oppression of the "Muslim woman."5 Also, her
statement that the Russian woman was "as flee as a bird" is inaccurate given the evidence
to the contrary in Eberhardt's own family background. Her adoptive father
Trophimowsky not only controlled Mme de Moerdre's money, but also used it to
purchase Villa Tropicale under his own name (Kobak 15), an estate which Eberhardt and
her brothers could not inherit later because it was claimed by Trophimosky's heirs in
Russia. All of Mme de Moerdre's children suffered from Tr0phimowsky's patriarchal

tyranny: Nicolas left home in 1885 (Kobak 19), Nathalie eloped in 1887 (Kobak 20),

50

Augustin in 1888 (Kobak 25), Isabelle in 1897, and Vladimir put his head in a gas oven
in 1898 (Koback 67).

In the colonies, it was as a helpmate--and not as a "free bird"--that the French
colonial order defined the French woman's role. As early as 1831, Marshall Soult, the
French Minister of war, declared that the colonization of Algeria must be led "by manied
peasant soldiers who will work on their land, while serving in the military." As for their
wives, they "will be employed as farm workers or laundresses" (Ageron 16). Even at the
time of Eberhardt's peregrinations in North Africa, the imperial field was not a suitable
place for single European women. In view of the debate about the dangerous
implications of hypnosis, the medical discourse in fin-de-siecle France "urged women not
to travel alone and never to meet the eyes of male strangers" (Shapiro 134-35).

Also, the order of expulsion against Eberhardt did not come solely from the
French authorities, but also with the benediction of the Russian consulate (Kobak 163),
who without hesitation, supported the eviction of the Russian woman from the French
territories of North Afiica. The reason why the French Arab Bureaux offered protection
and tolerated Eberhardt's "eccentric" behavior, was not because the French, like the
Russians, allow women to be "free birds," but because Eberhardt was a subject of the
Russian Tsar, a friend of the Third Republic, England's arch-enemy, and the guarantor of
a durable peace with Germany (Edmonde Charles-Roux, Nomadej'étais 266) (1995).

In the early years of the French conquest of Algeria (1840s-1850s), the stereotype
of the "Muslim woman" as victim of Islamic laws hardly appeared in the writings of
French writers. It was in the period between 1870-1900, that this stereotype was

produced. Once the military conquest was over and the hostile tribes pacified, "Islam," as

51

Clancy Smith and Gouda put it, "was moved from the battlefield into the bedroom" (154).
The new interest in the Muslim woman was kindled by the debate over the Algerian
man's right to vote (155). In the discourse of anti-assimilation, the stereotype of the
"Muslim woman's" oppression was deployed as a political pawn to deny the Algerian
man the right to vote, on the ground of his anti-French culture which degraded and
oppressed women. In French terms, the Algerian "Muslim woman" is oppressed not
because she is denied equal access to political, social and economic opportunities, but
because she is subjected to the "primitive" practices of veiling, seclusion and polygamy.
Thus, both patriarchies on the opposite sides of the Mediterranean agreed on denying the
"Muslim woman" her political rights such as the right to vote.

Eberhardt's criticism of the French women's movement and bourgeois women in
general subverts the project of colonial feminism. Eberhardt states that she deliberately
exiled herself in the Maghreb from the Paris "where the newspapers' lip-service to
feminism [are] even more repugnant than the Parisian coquettes" (In the Shadow of Islam
70). Eberhardt seems alienated from the French feminist movement, which she dubs as a
bourgeois world of "salons" (70) and dance balls (69). In 1900, the year of the Great
Exhibition in Paris, Eberhardt recalls only a sense of disgust from her visit to Paris. In
"The Age of the Void" ("L 'Age du néant"), a short story decrying the "tragi-comedy of
modern life," Eberhardt feels alienated from "the narrow-minded life" of those bourgeois
"insipid" women," with "no big minds, dwarfed and strangely looking alike." They are
nothing but "slaves to appearances at the detriment of the rea " and vulgar "courtisanes"
with no "esthetic grace" (Ecrits sur le sable 531-32). Penniless and still unknown despite

her talent, Eberhardt reported all her anger against French Bourgeois women.

52

During her visit to Paris, the Russian explorer Lydia Paschkoff introduced her to
the famous French lesbian feminist Sézverine,6 and to the famous literary salon of Marie
Laetizia Bonaparte-Wyse--grand niece of Bonaparte I (Charles-Roux, Nomade j 'e'tais
205)--where George Sand, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, and Saint-Beuve often
appeared (211). In one of her letters to Eberhardt, Paschkoff gives her the following
advice:

In France one must be French to live from journalism and
have--as I was told but refused to do--a lover in the Press. A
husband is more difficult, but those who have a husband manage to
make a career for themselves [...] Never! I prefer to tell you all
this brutally. I am told that even George Sand could have got
nowhere without Sandeau, Musset, etc. Séverine got on because of
her lovers Va [. . .] and Puy [. . .] and they are Frenchwomen.
My Job on the Figaro was a miracle. I had the whole staff
against me, except one, who was in love with me, and he let me
down when he saw that there was no hope. All the Russians were
against me, and when the Ambassador invited me to the Embassy
it did me more harm than anything else. (Macworth 71)
As Paschkoffs letter indicates, it was not easy for French women to achieve literary fame
in nineteenth century France. To succeed, they have to be either someone's wife or
someone's lover. Eberhardt's Russian origin and modest social background could only
add more hurdles on the path of her literary career.

Even though she dissociates herself from nineteenth century French feminism,
Eberhardt's writings both reflect and resist the bourgeois feminism7 of Maria Deraismes
and the radical feminism of the Saint Simonians and Hubertine Auclert. Given her
upper-class background, Deraismes's feminism focused primarily on the centrality of the
family. In her writings, "free love" was condemned because it entailed "the annihilation

of the family" (Claire Goldberg Moses, Femininsm in the 19"I Century 181). To save the

family, women must receive the same education as their husbands (Moses 183). Even

53

though she championed girls' education and the termination of the Napoleonic Civic
Code, Deraismes saw that it was too soon for the issue of the woman's vote.

Recalling Deraismes's emphasis on women's education, Eberhardt wanted to
create a school for Muslim girls. Despite the "constant intrigues" of the Moorish women"
(The Passionate Nomad 88) and the feelings of "hatred and disgust" they inspired in her
(Ecrits intimes 317), Eberhardt wanted to create a "[Qur'anic] school for little girls with
an elementary French course, writing and reading in Arabic, the essentials of Islamic
history, and everything in the most ardent Islamic spirit" (127). In contrast with the
principle of assimilation underlying Ferry's colonial education, and Hubertine Auclert's8
call for French women to conquer the domestic space of the "Muslim woman" and to
teach her the principles of French civilization (Femmes 49), Eberhardt wanted to turn the
Muslim little girls into better Muslims:

If we can at least find at least forty five little girls to start with,
then, the parents, noticing the good results and observing that
instead of Europearrizing their daughters, I would have made them

more Muslims, maybe then, they will be encouraged to send their
daughters, and we will expand our business. (Ecrits intimes 134)

Echoing Deraismes, Eberhardt argues that marital relationships should be based
on love and friendship, not power and gender inequality:

Our modern world is so distorted and warped that in marriage the
husband is hardly ever the one to do the initiating into sensuality.
Stupid and revolting as it is, young girls are hitched to a husband
for life, and he is a ridiculous figure in the end. The woman's
physical virginity is all his. She is then expected to spend the rest
of her life with him, usually in disgust, and suffer what is known
as her "marital duty," until the day that someone comes along to
teach her, in a web of lies, the existence of a whole universe of
thrills, thoughts and sensations that will regenerate her from head
to toe. That is where our marriage is so different from any other--
and shocks so many solid citizens: Slimene means two things to
me--he is both friend and lover. (The Passionate Nomad 79-80)

54

In presenting her maniage to an Algerian man as an ideal to be pursued by Europeans,
Eberhardt subverts the Eurocentrism at the heart of Auclert's attack on women's
oppression under Islam. Eberhardt's indictment of the young girls' predicament in Europe
to marry men they do not love and to suffer for the rest of their lives from "what is known
as their marital duty," shows that what Auclert denounced as the Islamic practices of
"bride sales"9 and "child rape"10 were not unheard of on the Northern shore of the
Mediterranean. However, Eberhardt's intention11 to hire a Russian woman to teach
Muslim girls the gendered-vocation of needlework (135), shows how she has embraced
the ethics of domesticity at the heart of the very bourgeois culture that she is criticizing.
Eberhardt's emphasis on women's sexual fulfillment is to be examined in view of

the tradition of male Orientalism, the Saint Simonians' doctrine of free love, and the
patriarchal concept of the family in the first half of nineteenth century France (McMillan
78). Like the French male Orientalists Eugene Delacroix's (Women of Algiers) and
André Gide (L 'Immoraliste), Eberhardt reconstructs the Maghreb as a place of sexual
freedom even though the southern shore of the Mediterranean had the same oppressive
sexual mores as its northern side. As a technology of space, the Maghreb becomes the
locale where European identity projects itself. Putting on Arab male clothes constitutes
an act of transvestism/minstrelsy that allows her to express and liberate her sexuality.
Commenting on her sexual life with Sliméne, she writes:

As far as I am concerned, though, I now have a focus for my

sexuality, and the silly phrase: "I am no longer my own master" is

quite to the point. When it comes to the senses, Slimene is my one

and only, undisputed lover. He is the only one I feel attracted to,

the only one to put me in the mood to forget the intellect and

descend--is it a descent? I doubt it very much--to the very
proverbial reahn of sexual exploits. (79)

55

Like her fellow male Orientalist Massignon, Eberhardt's colonial "penetration" of the
world of the zawiya and fascination with Islamic mysticism--especially with the Sufi
concepts of love, passion, and spiritual ecstasy (In the Shadow of Islam 116)--allow her to
sublirnate and legitimate her sexual drives. Eberhardt's rewriting of physical love along
the spiritual transcendence of sex in Sufi philosophy allows her to overcome the "feeling
of shame" about her sexuality. In her diaries, Eberhardt wrote that she used to "beat her
breasts" because she felt her sexuality made her "debauched' and "depraved" (Kobak 99).
Explaining to her Tunisian correspondent Ali Abdelwahab why she does not want
to marry El Khoudja, she writes: "Knowing the despotic character of the moors and the
cloistered life of Moorish women, [she] refirsed his proposal, preferring an illegal union
to the loss of all freedom and all future" (Ecrits intimes 72). Eberhardt's emphasis on
being the mistress and not the wife of her rich and powerful lovers--namely, the Turkish
diplomat Ahmed Rachid and the Algerian El Khoudja Ben Abdullah--and subsequent
marriage to a poor Spahi in the French army, underscore a view that defines patriarchy
in terms of money. Eberhardt's marriage to Sliméne subverts her own stereotypes about
Moorish violence and despotism. In a letter to her husband, Eberhardt apologizes for
beating him up: "[She] felt ashamed of [herself] because he didn't defend himself and
smiled at [her] blind anger" (Ecrits intimes 386). And she promises to be an obedient
and submissive wife fi'om then on. Eberhardt's power over her husband can also be
explained by his inferior status as a colonized subject. In marrying the inferior Muslim
Other, both Eberhardt and Bentami--the Russian woman who was charged by Barrucand
to translate Eberhardt's work from Russian into French--entered marital unions where

they had more freedom than they could ever have dreamt of if they had been manied to

56

someone from their own societies. In these marital contracts between European women
and native men, racial superiority seems to redress the balance of gender inferiority.

Probably because of his social and racial status, Sliméne accepted Eberhardt's

lifestyle and did not object to her peregrinations in the Algerian South. Indeed, she
traveled alone to F iguig, Beni Ouni and Colomb-Bechar, and Kenadsa. When her friend,
the novelist Robert Randau expressed "his astonishment at her frequent absences and
Slimene's patient acceptance of them, she protested that her husband knew very well that
her heart remained with him, but that she could not do otherwise than follow her own
destiny" (Kobak 169). In their first encounter with Randau, Slimene introduced his wife
as a man: "May I introduce you to Si Mahmoud Saadi, this is his battle name, in reality, it
is Mrs. Ehnni, my wife" (Kobak 195).

Because of her Russian origin, her gender, and conversion to Islam, Eberhardt
occupies a double position inside/outside the French and the Muslim patriarchal order.
Eberhardt's ambivalence towards the "French civilizing mission" in general and the
"Muslim woman" in particular derives from the different sites of enunciation she
occupies while negotiating her social, racial, and sexual identity (Bhabha 28). However
unlike Bhabha's androcentric view of hybridity and colonial mimicry, Eberhardt's double
belonging to French and Muslim society, shows that the hybrid is always gendered.12
This gendered hybridity is best illustrated in her frequent clashes with the French
colonial authorities. Responding to the decree of her expulsion, Eberhardt wrote:

According to the terms of the decree, I am being banned from all
Algerian territory, whether under civilian or military control. I can
only wonder about the rationale for this measure. I am a Russian
citizen and can in all good conscience say that I have done nothing

wrong to deserve it. I have never participated in or had any
knowledge of any anti-French activities either in the Sahara or in

57

the Tell. On the contrary, I have gone out of my way to defend the
late naib of Ouargla, Sidi Mohammed Taib, who died fighting a
hero's death fighting alongside the French, against the accusations
made by a handful of Muslims who have argued that the naib had
betrayed Islam by installing the French at in-Salah, I have always
spoken favorably of France to the natives, for I consider it my
adoptive country. (62)

Including herself in the French empire, Eberhardt strategically calls France "her adoptive
country," others her Muslim brothers as "natives," and writes herself off as an agent of
French imperialism. Just as she tries to include herself in the imperial field on the basis
of her racial and national background, the French colonial order tries to exclude her on
the basis of her gender. Throughout her stay in the Algerian desert, Eberhardt's
movements were restricted by the French military. Vexed by Eberhardt's reluctance to
travel with him, the head of the military Arab Bureau at Biskra, Captain Adolphe-Roger
de Susbielle, forbade her to stay at Chegga for more than twenty-four hours (Kobak 90-
1). Captain Gaston Cauvet, head of the Arab Bureau at El Oued, also put her under
surveillance. In a report to his superiors, he wrote: "Physically she is neurotic and
unhinged, and I'm inclined to think that she has come to El Oued principally to satisfy
unhindered her dissolute tastes and her penchant for natives in a place where there are
few Europeans" (Kobak 130-31). An anonymous letter sent to General Dechizelle at
Batna, also presented her as the enemy within. The writer of the letter wrote that she
was the subject of an investigation by the Russian and Swiss police for poisoning and
stealing the money of her adoptive father Trophimowsky. She was also accused of
harboring "a profound hatred for France and would like nothing better than to excite

France's Arab subjects against her" (Kobak 142-43).

58

IV) La Roumia Convertie
I would like to use here Eberhardt's description of her mother as "la roumia
convertie" ("the converted non-Muslim woman") (Ecrits intimes 382) to discuss
Eberhardt's dual position as insider/outsider with respect to Muslim society. In her
personal diary, published after her death as The Passionate Nomad, Eberhardt describes
how she felt embarrassed with her roumi cap (63) while sitting in a Constantine café. In
Arabic, the word roumi (masculine) or roumia (feminine) means a non-Muslim of
European origin, usually Christian. Derived from aI-roum, the Arabic plural for
"Romans," this word is loaded with connotations of cultural, racial, and religious
otherness. Eberhardt's embarrassment at the café was caused by her display of a sign of
alterity that sets her apart fi'om the Algerian men sitting in the café. This feeling of
unease disappears only when she starts performing what she constructs as native male

behavior, i.e., smoking kif.

In her diaries, Eberhardt makes a cross before those passages in Russian and a
crescent before those in Arabic (The Passionate Nomad 71). In locating the (C)--the

sign of Islam's alterity--and the Russian Orthodox Church (1') in a French text, not only
does she subvert the binarism in male Orientalism between the Christian West and the
Muslim East, she also deconstructs the production by Western Europe of Russia and the
Orthodox Church as Oriental Others.

As a cultural hybrid, "Ia roumia convertie" occupies different sites of enunciation.
In a letter to her brother Augustin, Eberhardt writes: "My body is in the West/And my
soul is in the Orient/My body is in infidel country/And my heart is in Istanbul" (Kobak

35). In another letter, she advises Slimene to beware the "examples of the unbelieving,

59

the pseudo-Muslims around [him] who are blind, degenerate and the last of the infidels"
(Ecrits intimes 336). The two above examples reveal an internal dislocation in the
subject of enunciation (Bhabha 30). Whereas in the first passage, Eberhardt seems split
because of her double belonging to an infidel Europe and a regenerate Orient, in the
second, "la roumia convertie" creates pseudo-Muslims and excludes them to write
herself as a true Muslim. However, in referring to those fake Muslims as infidels, she is
simultaneously othering the "roumia" in her, and therefore excluding herself from what
she calls the society of "true Muslims."

As a mimic woman and a gendered hybrid, "la roumia convertie" is both free and
subjected to the Law of the Muslim Father. Abdullah, the Tidjanya fanatic who tried to
assassinate her, said at his trial that he attacked Eberhardt because she dressed as a man:

I received a mission from God, who ordered me to go to the Djrid,
passing by Behima, where I was to meet Mademoiselle Eberhardt,
who created disorder in the Moslem religion. . .[she] wore

masculine dress, which is contrary to our customs, and thus made
trouble in our religion. (Macworth 128).

Indeed, it is her masquerade as an Arab man--a violation of the Islamic "sexual division
of gender" and therefore of "hudud Allah" (Bouhdiba 30-2)--that provoked the attack by
Abdullah. At other times, however, both her male disguise and racial Otherness turn
paradoxically into a blessing that allows her to pray with men (Ecrits intimes 92), and to
sleep outdoors with Khelifa and Rezki, while Hennia and her son slept indoors in the
larger room (The Passionate Nomad 40-1).

As a white person, however, Eberhardt enjoys the preferential treatment due to the
members of her race in North Africa.13 Because he tried to assassinate a white woman,

Abdullah was initially sentenced to the death penalty, but with Eberhardt's intercession

60

his sentence was commuted to a life in prison (Kobak 174). The murder of Arab
subjects, however, incurred no such serious legal penalties. A week after Abdullah's trial,
Maitre Laffont, Eberhardt's attorney, easily obtained the acquittal of three Arab men for
the murder of a Touggourt shopkeeper during a robbery (Kobak 176).

As a colonial subject, "la roumia convertie" is in collusion with the French
imperialist discourse. Reflecting the French distortion of Algerian history, she writes
"that Old Algiers is medieval, Turkish, Moorish, or what have you, but not Arabic and
certainly not African" (The Passionate Nomad 92). Eberhardt's statement is in
accordance with French colonial historiography, which obscures the Arab period and
presents the Romans as the ancestors of the French in North Africa (Prochaska, Making
Algeria French 213).

As a colonial accomplice, Eberhardt, the explorer, records everything that could
be useful to the French imperial project: topographic information, religious and cultural
beliefs, customs, and her own views on the Algerian leaders she encounters. For
instance, Eberhardt's information on Sheikh Embarek is clearly addressed to the French
colonial powers. Eberhardt warns the colonial authorities that even though Sheikh
Embarek might be helpful in subduing the rebellious tribes, the French have to pay
attention to his greed and ambitions:

This sheikh Embarek exercises great influence over the
Ouled Bou Anane, and he is plotting for absolute leadership of his
tribe. Since the Ouled Bou Anane have made peace with the
French, and frequent the markets south of Oran, Embarek foresees
the complete annexation. He is ready to assist this, for he hopes by
then to be the great chief of all the Doui Menia: he to whom
Christians "would give a scarlet bumous and decorations!"

Embarek is ambitious and smart, but he is also a
gunpowder man, a highwayman, having only renounced the

61

traditional pillaging in hope of extracting greater profit from peace
than from skirmishes. (In the Shadow of Islam 63)

She also provides the colonial government with information about the nature of

the local government and the vulnerability of the native leaders:
At Kenadsa, the Arab theocratic tendency has triumphed

over the Berber tradition, which is republican and confederate.

The chief of the zawiya is the only hereditary lord of the ksar. It is

he who settles all questions and who, in the case of war, appoints

military chiefs. It is he who renders criminal justice, while civil

affairs are judged by the cadi. Yet here too, the marabout is the

supreme authority, to whom one may appeal the cadi's decisions.

(67)

Since the Marabouts' neighborly rapport and increasing

fi'iendship with the French, a secret discontent has invaded the

hearts of the local classes. No one dares raise his voice and

criticize the masters' acts. They bow, they repeat the opinions of

Sidi Brahim and even praise them, but were it not for his enormous

moral authority, they would consider him and his disciples to be

"M'zanat'--renegades. (68-9)
It is true that Eberdardt is providing information to the French colonial authorities, but at
the same time, while endorsing the French colonial policy of pacification, she is trying to
save the lives of her Algerian co-religionists by preventing a more brutal form of
colonization as previously seen in Colonel Pélissier'sl4 mass-extermination of the Ouled
Riah tribe in 1845.

Just as the French troops are trying to penetrate the Algerian desert and tame its
inhabitants, in her romantic quest, Eberhardt wants "the sun to be still [hers]" (16). After
her fever has left her, she admits that she "wanted to possess this country, and this
country has instead possessed [her]" (111). As an imperial subject, Eberhardt is in the
masculinist position to "possess" the country however. Her claim to the contrary--(she is

possessed by the country)--serves the anti-conquest rhetoric of the imperial project.

According to Pratt, the anti-conquest trope whereby the European traveler appears

62

feminized and innocent serves to hide his/her complicity with the colonial enterprise
(Imperial Eyes 82-4). Suddenly, the Maghreb becomes a threat that risks to engulf and
destroy the Western traveler: "Sometimes, I wonder if this land won't take over all her
conquerors, with their new dreams of power and freedom, just as she has distorted all the
old dreams" (In the Shadow of Islam 111).

In those passages where the Maghreb is not a threat to the European imperial
subject, it becomes the locus of degeneration and decadence. In a rhetoric, which mixes
nineteenth century racial ideology and the "mal du siecle" feeling of the decadent French
poets, Eberhardt constructs the absence of European people as the direct cause of racial

degeneration in Sfissifa:

We headed for Sfissifa, a little Muslim town without a
single European, without even a Jew [...] It was there my
curiosity recognized you, sickly villagers-pale, whining,
and effeminately dressed--a race weakened by ancient
inbreeding and sedentary lives. I saw you again, villages
crumbling in the shade of delightful gardens, invaded by
desert little by little, being devoured. And I realized then,
there are people, too, who exude decay. (In the Shadow of
me2D

Even though she is married to an Algerian, Eberhardt shows at times a
condescending attitude towards Arabs. In a letter to the "Dépéche Algérienne," she wrote
that unlike other women's interest in beautiful clothes:
All I want is a good horse as a mute and loyal companion, a
handful of servants hardly more complex than my mount, and a life
as far away as possible from the hustle and bustle I happened to
find so sterile in the civilized world where I feel so deeply out of
place. (The Passionate Nomad 59)

What is significant here is the split within her colonial subjectivity. On the one hand,

the "native"--because of his racial inferiority-~can be conceived only as her servant,

63

regardless of his/her class. In Ecrits intimes, for instance, she urges Ali Abdelwahab, a
member of the Tunisian bourgeoisie, to do different things for her, such as babysitting
her brother Alexander or selling Tr0phimowsky's botanical garden to the Bey of Tunis.
On the other hand, by exposing the hollowness and sterility of the "civilized world,"
Eberhardt undermines the very basis of her authority as a colonial subject. In "L 'Age du
néant," too, Eberhardt subverts the project of the French civilizing mission by
denouncing modern civilization as the "great fiaud of our time" (Ecrits sur le sable 531).
She has even promised to write a book about the "harmfirl" effects of "Europeanization"
on Arab society (Ecrits intimes 218).

In Ecrits intimes, she states that all of these Arab women--whom she calls
"gueuses"--inspired her with an unbearable feeling of disgust and hatre " (312).
According to Le Grand Robert de la langue F rancaise,” the word gueux has a variety of
meanings ranging from mendiant ("beggar"), fripon/coquin ("rascal"), va-nu-pied
("nobody"/"low life"), débauche ("debauched person"), and femme de mauvaise vie
("prostitute"). In fin-de-siecle France, la gueuse became a slur that designates the
Republic in the discourse of the Far Right. According to Charles-Roux, the only
Tunisian women--in fact woman--Eberhardt fought with was the mother-in-law of Ali
Abdelwahab, a man with whom Eberhardt was having an affair16 and a regular
correspondence. The Arab women she was calling "gueuses" were in fact wealthy
women from the Tunisian elite (Charles-Roux, Nomade j 'étais 107). Because
Abdelwahab's wife Aicha and her mother were neither beggars nor prostitutes, the noun
"gueuses" probably meant in this context "nobodies." What Eberhardt's condescending

attitude reveals is not simply her anti-bourgeois feelings, but also her deployment of race

as a sign of social inscription, to compensate for her social subordination. It is as the
"Arab woman" that now Eberhardt refers to Ali's wife, formerly her fiiend and sister
"Aicha" (Ecrits intimes 132, 174).

Eberhardt's identification with or differentiation from the "Muslim woman"
depends on the power position she occupies. In a fight with her husband Slirnéne, she
distances herself from the "Muslim woman" and demands that she be given the respect
and equality due to a Muslim brother:

Yes, indeed, I am your wife before God and Islam. But I am not a
vulgar Fathma or an ordinary Aicha. I am your brother Mahmoud,
the servant of God and Djilani, rather than the servant of her
husband that every Arab woman is according to the law of Shari'a.
And I don't want, do you hear, that you show yourself to be
unworthy of the beautiful dreams that I have made for both of us,

and of which I have only told you a part, in the letter of last
Tuesday. (Ecrits intimes 3345-37)1

As the above quotation shows, Eberhardt's identification with the Other and not the Other
Without18 expresses a relation of power. This subordination of the Algerian "Muslim
woman" is expressed in Eberhardt's reliance on the French colonial discourse, which
dismisses all Muslim women as Aisha, Fatima or Zohra; names usually given to Algerian
maids working for the French settlers (Frantz F anon, "Algeria Unveiled" 52). Just as the
vulgar Aicha and Fathma firnction as metaphors for gender inequality and oppression,
they can also be metaphors for financial security and happiness depending on Eberhardt's
financial situation. Broke and starving, Eberhardt wrote:

Here is complete destitution. .. no food, no money, no heat...

Nothing!" Now, how little would the real misery and the

cloistered life of Arab women be... Even blessed would be my

absohgrte dependence vis a vis Rouh [Slimene]. (Ecrits intimes
286)

65

In her writings, Eberhardt not only reproduces the stereotypes of the Muslim
woman as prostitute in the discourse of male Orientalism, but more importantly she
reinvents them to negotiate her social and sexual identity. In The Oblivion Seekers, there
is a fetishistic mode of representation that fixes the "Muslim woman" as a prostitute and
victim of her "mektoub." The story of Achoura Ben Said, who becomes a prostitute after
being abandoned by her husband, derives from the stories of Ouled Nail, the Algerian
dancers/prostitutes who caught the imagination of the Western travelers in North Afiica.
In the opening passage of "Achoura," we see a postcard of an "Ouled Nail" (31)
prostitute, who seemed in her "bizarre garments" like a mysterious "ancient oriental
idol."20 In this short story, Achoura's victimization is produced as a cultural trope to
discuss Islam's inferiority. Indeed, her marriage at a very young age, seclusion, and
repudiation (32) conform to the Eurocentric view that Islam is a barbaric religion that
condones polygamy and the sale of brides. In the above example, the reproduction of the
Achoura as a prostitute results from the colonial subject's constitution through what
Bhabha calls a "fixed" ideological construction of the Other, which circulates as
stereotype (The Location of Culture 66).

More interesting, however, are those passages where she collaborates with and
resists the discourse of male Orientalism. Describing the impact of the French civilizing
mission in Algeria, she observes: "Despite the riff-raff French civilization has brought
over here, whore and whoremaster that it is, Algiers is still a place full of grace and
charm" (The Passionate Nomad 91). Even though Algeria is still feminized as a gracefirl
and charming woman, by turning France into a pimp, Eberhardt strips French imperialism

of its moral justification for the colonization of Algeria.

66

Still, an overview of In the Shadow of Islam reveals that Eberhardt shares a lot of
cultural narcissism and racial prejudice with her fellow European male Orientalists.
Blacks, in particular, seem to be the first target of her racist attack: they were "wild, eager
for childlike games and barbarous frenzy, very near, now, to our animal origins" (77).
Her views about Maghrebian women, whether Muslims or Jews, Blacks or Arabs, seem
to derive from the nineteenth century racial ideology in Europe. Just as sensuality is
Arab, greed is Jewish (101-02), and savagery is Black, intellectual pursuits like
Eberhardt's romantic quest in North Africa are Aryan characteristics. Eberhardt's racial
and cultural self-complacency separates her from the "Maghrebian woman":

So when will I have done with this mania that leads me to interpret
the simplest gestures in a religious sense? There is our Aryan
weakness. When others cook their dinner, we think of the sacrifice
of the Soma, of libations of butter on the fire. Just now a woman
lifted a pot to add an arrnful of thorny wood to the fire: all that

mattered to me was the flame shooting up, straight and free,
towards peacefulness of the stars. (102)

Eberhardt's presentation of white skin as a marker of civilization and intellect and
Blackness as a symbol of savagery recalls the nineteenth century racial doctrine of Le
Comte de Gobineau, who claimed that the Aryans created the civilizations of Egypt,
India and China (Essai sur l'ine‘galité des races humaines 11 347-48). Eberhardt's racism
prevents her from identifying with the Black Muslim women she meets in the Maghreb.
If condescendingly and reluctantly Eberhardt calls Black men her brothers in Islam, the
possibility of identifying with her Black Muslim sisters is unthinkable. The following
passage illustrates not only Eberhardt's racial prejudice, but also her erasure of the Black
Muslim sister:

I find blacks to be disconcerting and repulsive, mainly because of
the extreme mobility of their faces: their ferret's eyes, and features

67

plagued by tics and grimaces. They [blacks] bring out in me a
stubborn sense of their non-humanity, a lack of kinship which I
succumb to childishly, every time, in the face of these blacks, my
brothers [. . .] There's only one among the slaves that I find likable:
the gatekeeper Ba Mahmadou ou Salem, confidant of Sidi Brahim.
He's a tall, tranquil Sudanese, with a face scarred by brands. He
wears irnmaculatory white clothes under a long black bumous. In
his expressions, his gestures, and in his regular features, there's
nothing of the ape-man, grimacing and crafty, or of the animal
cunning which passes for intelligence among the blacks. (In the
Shadow of Islam 46)

The Black Muslim woman has no name; sexual promiscuity seems to be the
generic name for "black womanhood":

The colored women's morals are extremely loose. For a
few sous, for a scarf, and even for pleasure, they give themselves
to whomever, Arab or negro. They make open advances to guests,
offering themselves with casual forwardness which is often funny
to watch...

The male slaves manage to contain somewhat the urgings
of their blood, but all of black womanhood abandon themselves to
instinct, and their quarrels are as fiivolous as their loves.
Sometimes in the courtyards noisy arguments break out,
degenerating into fist fights and naked brawls in the sun. (In the
Shadow of Islam 48)

What is important here is that Eberhardt not only reproduces the male Orientalist
stereotype of the "Muslim woman" as prostitute, but also transforms it to negotiate her
own social, sexual and gender identity. Eberhardt's construction of the Black Muslim
woman as harlot and the Arab Muslim woman as independent reflects the rigid
boundaries of class, race, and gender in nineteenth century Europe. Even though she
does not openly identify with the Black "Muslim woman" as she does with the Arab,
Eberhardt's construction of Black womanhood as sexually promiscuous (48) mirrors her
own lifestyle in North Africa, where she took many Algerian, Tunisian, and French

lovers (In the Shadow of Islam 6). What is significant here is that the Black Muslim

68

woman functions like an alter ego onto which Eberhardt projects her fears of social and
economic destitution.

Despite her contempt for the Republican feminism of Maria Deraismes, Eberhardt
shares the Third Republic's contempt for the working-class woman. It is as "Jenny
l'ouvrie‘re" ("working-girl"), that Eberhardt disparagingly refers to her sister-in-law. In
Ecrits intimes she writes that her brother "got engaged to a commoner, daughter and
sister of sailors" (69). In fin-de-siecle France, the bourgeois establishment analyzed "the
perceived pathology of the city in terms of the condition of working-class women"
(Shapiro 21). Because of her autonomy and independence, the working-girl occupied a
central place in those scientific and social discussions on female sexuality and criminal
behavior (Shapiro 22). Eberhardt's construction of the lower class Black "Muslim
woman" as a "harlot" parallels the bourgeois contempt for the working-class "French
woman," who is "no woman" at all in the eyes of the Republican politician Jules Simon
(McMillan 37).

At the same time, the projection of her sexual fantasies onto the enslaved black
woman betrays Eberhardt's desire to liberate herself fi'om the sexual oppression imposed
by bourgeois morality. This process of inclusion and exclusion of the "Other Without"
(Arab Muslim woman and the Black Muslim woman) is an integral part of the
mechanisms involved in the formation of identity. The sexuality of the Black "Muslim
woman" and "the autonomy" of the Arab upper class "Muslim woman"/Saint are
therefore foils to define Eberhardt's own position in Europe. If on the other hand, the
Arab "Muslim woman" or female marabout has earned the admiration of this female

imperial subject, it is not because this special category of Muslim woman conforms to the

69

bourgeois ideal of the angel in the house, but because in her reinvention of the Maghreb,
Eberhardt constructs this non-European space as a feminotopia, i.e., "an idealized [world]
of female autonomy, empowerment, and pleasure" (Pratt 166-67). The invention of the
upper-class Arab woman as autonomous reflects Eberhardt's inner desire to reconstruct a
European womanhood that is free from the prison-house of gender.

Unlike the Black "Muslim woman," the Arab "Muslim woman" often functions as
a surrogate self for this European woman traveler. Even though Eberhardt displays at
times a condescending attitude towards the Arab "Muslim woman," she does not
dehumanize her like the Black or the Mulatto "Muslim woman." The Arab "Muslim
woman" is referred to by her colonial name "Aisha" or "Fathma," her title as "wife" or
Lella (lady), and sometimes her real name. As she tells the story of Embarka, the
"Muslim woman" who committed suicide to escape her abusive husband, Eberhardt
cannot but identify with her lot. In this instance, Embarka functions as Eberhardt's
recognizable imago in the mirror: she is a "rebel" (In the Shadow of Islam 74) who put an
end to her "suffering" and "servitude" by taking her own life.

I make enquiries and reconstruct the drama, seeking to
penetrate her reasons. She was not on good terms with her
relatives, I'm told; she had no one to complain to. Her husband,
Hammou Hassine, didn't pay attention to her, except to beat her
into submission. The little Bedouin, wild at heart, became
resigned after a few attempts at revolt, or so it appeared. In
actuality a feeling of extraordinary freedom possessed her.

Many times she had fled to her brother, who always
retunred her to her husband. She was prevented from going to ask
protection of the cadi or of Sidi Brahim. She was a slave, more
slave than the negresses, in that her servitude brought her
suffering. At the end she was cahn, for she had grasped the key to
ultimate liberation. One evening when everyone was at the mosque

she mustered her resources for the escape, she raised herself on her
little feet, she hung herself above her life and her condition with

70

her long silk belt, without confiding a word to anyone, all by
herself. (In the Shadow of Islam 74)

Eberhardt's perception of Embarka as. a "slave" is framed by her views on women's
bondage in Europe. Hammou Hassine is not different from the European male who
desires the European woman to remain "a slave or an idol" (70). Eberhardt's account of
Embarka's suicide not only illustrates a rare example of feminine solidarity in this
narrative, but also the self-dissipation and nihilism underlying Eberhardt's romantic
philosophy. Echoing the decadent poets, she writes: "A people for whom suicide is still
possible is a strong people. Animals never kill themselves; nor negroes unless, that is,
they are stimulated by alcohol. Suicide is a kind of drunkenness, but a deliberate
drunkenness" (74).

Just as she celebrates Embarka's suicide as a brave rebellion against native
patriarchy, Eberhardt sanctions female maraboutism and mystical Islam in general for
liberating the "Muslim woman" fiom the constraints of gender. Behdad's argument that
Eberhardt's encounter with the famous female marabout, Lella Zaynab, is instigated by
her "search for Islamic spirituality" and the French army's need for "information to be
used for a complete takeover" (129) might be true, but his analysis overlooks the
interplay of class and gender in Eberhardt's fascination with this mystical woman.
Indeed, many female marabouts traveled in the desert dressed as men like Eberhardt
herself. Lella F atrna for example, "organized the resistance against the French in the
Djurdjura mountains in 1857" (Mackworth 116). Eberhardt's wearing of an Arab male
attire is consistent with her identification with these independent female marabouts who,

liberated from the constraints of motherhood and wifehood, rode in the desert wearing

71

male garments. Mackworth points to Eberhardt's acquaintance with the tradition of
female maraboutism:
Riding in the desert of Southern Oran during the year of Isabelle's
stay in El Oued, was an exquisite little saint affiliated to the
Qadrya--the eighteen-year-old Dehbiya of the Sedjara tribe. In
1899 she had visited Oran, dressed in her habitual male costume
consisting of two light bumous, a woolen haik, an abeyah and a
kenbouch, her nails lightly tinted with henna as a concession to
feminine coquetry. Dehbiya was venerated in our region as one of

the holiest female marabouts in Islam because of her skill in the
science of ecstasy, which was held in great consideration among

the Qadrya. (116)

Eberhardt's friendship with Lella Zaynab, the Rahmaniya marabout at the zawiya of El
Hamil (The Passionate Nomad 107), seemed like a dangerous alliance for the French
colonial authorities who put both of them under surveillance (Departures 239).
According to Karim Harndi, Lella Zaynab stood against both the French and the Muslim
patriarchy to become her father's successor as the marabout of El Hamil. Even though
the French forced Lella Zaynab's father to appoint his nephew as his successor, Lella
Zaynab after his death pleaded her case in front of all the Rahmaniya brothers and
became her father's successor (Departures 239-40).

Eberhardt's admiration of female autonomy in mystical Islam is clear in her
appreciation of Lella Khaddoudja, an upper class Arab woman, whose pursuit of Islamic
spirituality allowed her to escape the drudgery of domestic life.” As she decides to go on
a pilgrimage, Lella Khaddoudja, Sidi Brahim's relative, leaves behind her wifely and
motherly duties and finds "in the sacred soil" of Mecca a new home:

The Sudanese tells me that this house belongs to one Lella
Khaddoudja, a relative of Sidi Brahim. Being widowed very

young, with two children, a boy and a little girl, the pious
maraboute remarried one of her cousins on the strict condition that

72

they leave immediately for Mecca. The cousin kept his promise,
and Lella Khaddoudja left the zawiya, leaving her son behind.

The day she left Kenadsa," says Ba Mahmadou, "we all,
every servant, accompanied her as far as the Ain ech Cheikh
fountain, on the road to Bechar. From her seat on mule back she
turned one last time to look at the ksar, and told us she would
never return, because she would rather live and die on the sacred
soil of Hedjaz. (61)

I, too, begin musing about Lella Khaddoudja, who must
have a rather adventurous soul, to break so willingly with the
sleepy routine, the cloistered life she was born to, to go off and
start a new life under another sky.(62)

Eberhardt's construction of the Arab "Muslim woman" reverses the ideal of
femininity in Victorian gender ideology. Eberhardt's rejection of the cult of domesticity
is illustrated not only in her solitary journey to the Maghreb, but also in her escape from
the constraints of motherhood. In contrast with the bourgeois feminism of Deraismes
which reduced marriage to "the propagation" of the human species (Moses 181),
Eberhardt did not want to have children. When asked by her friend Robert Randau
whether she wanted to have children, Eberhardt said that "if [she] "had a child [she]
should not give up [her] wanderings." She would "carry him with [her], strapped to [her]
saddle, wherever [she] wen ." But for the moment, she had no wish to become a mother
(qtd. in Mackworth 169). The romantic diction used to describe Lella Khaddoudja's
spiritual journey reinforces Eberhardt's identification with the "Other without." The two
women are brought together by a common destiny: a rejection of domesticity, an
"adventurous soul," a fascination with Islamic spirituality, and an attempt to reconfigure
the patriarchal concept of home.

In Marginales en T erre d'Islam (1992), Dalenda and Abdelhamid Largueche

explain that the zawiya is a liminal and subversive space, where the sacred is reunited

with the profane. Indeed, these Sufi sanctuaries have always been an asylum for the

73

social outcasts: ex-prostitutes, the mentally ill, divorcées, run-away wives, homosexuals,
etc. In the mystical world of Sufi brotherhood, Eberhardt uses the subversive space of
the zawiya to legitimate her homoerotic desire. Right after the passage where she states
that a good Muslim is he who "can unite without sin Faith with Sensuality" (117), she

describes a brown young woman, using a homoerotic register of language:

I remind myself that we already spoke of these things in Algiers,
before the immensity of the sea glittering in the moonlight, on
certain nights one spring. They seemed quite natural to us [the
Muslim brothers] in a setting of wanton sensuality, accompanied
by 1001 cigarettes, in the presence of that young woman, brown
and detached, her neck resting on the diva cushions, who knew
how to listen, all ears and eyes, an exemplar of Oriental beauty
who could smile at us and display herself to advantage. (117)

In Colonial Desire (1995), Robert Young claims that "the repulsion that
[Western] writers commonly express when describing other races, particularly Africans,"
is accompanied "with an equal emphasis, sometimes apparently inadvertent, on the
beauty, attractiveness or desirability of the racial other" (Young 96). Eberhardt's
description of Black women and Mulattos falls within this ambivalent axis of attraction
and repulsion towards the racial other. Despiteotheir filthiness and immorality, Eberhardt,

masquerading as Si Mahmoud Essadi, finds Black/colored women sexually attractive.

The following passage illustrates a voyeuristic trajectory of desire:

Under the low vault of the door which opens on to the
interior court, two young women had paused. One was a Sudanese
negress with a round face and large, russet doe's eyes. Small but
weighty chains of silver passed through her earlobes and dangled
down to her shoulders; silver snakes fastened the two long mats of
her jet-black hair that spread across the chest.

A Citron-yellow mlahfa was wound in soft folds round her
tall, thin body. Seated, her elbows on her knees, she was speaking

74

with expressive hand gestures, her palms waving and bracelets
clicking.
The other, a mulatta, remained standing. Her strange
beauty was alluring; an aquiline profile, dark and fine; large, sad
eyes; voluptuous, arched lips revealing fine teeth.
A mlahfa of red wool, the hue of pale blood, draped her
supple form. One of the panels of her veils fell straight down from
her head to her arching loins, passing behind her lovely nude arm,
the color of old bronze. She held herself very straight, with her
large, terracotta arnphora resting on her rounded hip. (5 7)
Eberhardt's attraction to Blackness reflects what Gobineau calls "the tragic flaw" of the
Aryan races. As "the elite races" are compelled by their civilizing instincts to mix their
blood with the "inferior" races, in the long run, this process of hybridization will bring
about their demise (Gobineau 1: 153). Whereas for Gobineau, civilization is white and
male (Gobineau 1: 92-3), Eberhardt's narrative, while still retaining Gobineau's
ethnocentrism, endorses the view that civilization could also be female.

Eberhardt's travelogue subverts not only the phallocentrism of the nineteenth
century imperial ideology, but also the bourgeois heterosexual matrix. Eberhardt's
disguise as an Arab man becomes instrumental in expressing her desire for other women.
As a she/he, Isabelle/Mahmoud becomes a "non-differentiated oneness" (Luce Irigaray,
This Sex Which is Not One 207) i.e., a subject who is simultaneously a he, a she, and a
she/he. In Eberhardt's own words, she "[has] lived already in all men and in all women
(In the Shadow of Islam 98). In her personal writings, Eberhardt seems shifting between
various forms of otherness. In Ecrits intimes, she uses both the male (1 8) and female (64)
inflection of French grammar. In a letter to Ali Abdelwahab, she genders herself as
female in those passages in Arabic and signs herself as Podo, the short form for Nicolas

Podolinsky, the male pseudonym under which she published her short story "Infemalia"

(64). At other times, her letters are signed Meriem in Arabic and Podolinsky in French

75

(86-7). This double signature allows her to crisscross the boundaries of gender, race, and
religion. In the Maghreb, Si Mahmoud Saadi/Isabelle passes for a Turk in Tunisia
(Kobak 97), and a Tunisian in Algeria (Charles-Roux Nomade j ’étais 103). Before she
became Mrs. Ehnni, Si Mahmoud also corresponded with a French officer posted in
Algeria under the pseudonym of Nadia (Kobak 47). Eberhardt also writes herself as
"daughter of Nicolas," meaning a daughter of an unknown father in Russian (Ecrits
intimes 111). In Sardaignes, she passed for the wife of her lover Abdel Aziz Osman, and
received letters under the false name of "Mme Mereina Aziz Bey" (Charles-Roux,
Nomade j 'étais 171).

In Belated Travelers (1994), Ali Behdad claims that Eberhardt's male Arab
disguise, rather than challenging the "categories of race and gender, as Garber claims," is
a "phallocentric appropriation" (123) of an oriental signifier that reinforces the
differences between the colonizer and the colonized. This chapter argues that the
disguise of "la roumia convertie" serves multiple functions: Eberhardt not only
appropriates an oriental signifier as Behdad claims, but also disrupts European ideologies
of race, gender and class. Even though she has "gone native," Eberhardt has always
remained the roumia; hence, the attempt upon her life by Abdullah. Even though he is
right in reading Eberhardt's Arab male disguise as a colonial gesture, Behdad seems to
ignore how Eberhardt's wearing of an Arab male attire allows her to negotiate the
antagonistic claims of her sexual and social identity in Europe. Just as they are
constitutive of gender identity, clothes are also markers of social identity: Eberhardt's
wearing of Arab male attire is significant not just because it subverts European gender

and racial ideology, but more importantly, because it allows her to negotiate her social

76

position in Europe, i.e., to define herself as a middle-class woman, rather than a member
of the destitute classes. Because she cannot afford the garments of European middle-
class women, Eberhardt crossdresses to enter through the door of exoticism those same
circles from which she has been excluded. During the prosecution of the Sufi fanatic
who has tried to assassinate her, Eberhardt writes to her husband Slimene, informing him
of her worries that her Arab male clothes might be too provocative to wear during the
trial. Thinking about the possibility of wearing a European male attire, she writes:

You absolutely must not buy European clothes, because you've no
idea how much it costs and I formally forbid you to contract a
centime of debts. You know me and know very well that I'm
prepared to obey you in everything, except when you're talking
nonsense. One can tell you know nothing of what it costs to dress
not well, but at least passable as a Frenchwoman: a wig (this costs
for a shaved head like mine, some 15 to 20 francs, because a
simple plait won't do), a hat, underwear, corset, petticoats, skirts,

, stockings, shoes, gloves and so on. All I will concede to is to stop
dressing as an Arab, which is anyway the only thing that would
prejudice the authorities against me. I shall therefore dress as a
European [man]... I swear to you, it's not for the pleasure of
dressing up as a man, but because its impossible for me to do
otherwise. At court-martial... they always said to me, "We quite
understand that you wish to wear men's clothes, but why don't you
dress as a European?" Anyway that's all I have to say to you on
the subject. It's impossible for me to do otherwise... I don't care if
I dress as a workman, but to wear ill-fitting, cheap and ridiculous
women's clothes, no, never. (qtd. in Katrina O'Loughlin, "The
Spectre of the Veiled Dance" 233)

Even though the possibility that she might be using her poverty as an excuse to cross-
dress is not ruled out, the importance of class and economic independence in defining the
position of women in Europe can be adduced from Eberhardt's adamant refusal--whether
genuine or not--to wear the cheap clothes of working-class women. Bearing in mind
Eberhardt's aristocratic background, her willingness to wear the clothes of the European

working-men, rather than the "cheap" clothes that poor women wear, reveals the

77

precariousness of her economic situation as well as her fear of falling to a lower level, of
being contaminated by the European working-class women.

To avoid problems with the French authorities at the trial, Eberhardt appears not
in European men's clothes as she said to her husband, but in Arab women's attire. Her
choice of Arab women's clothes both conforms to and transgresses the Law of the
Colonial Father: in wearing female attire, she subscribes herself to the clear-cut bourgeois
distinction between the sexes, yet, her masquerade as an Arab woman, i.e., her use of an
oriental signifier, allows her to cross the class boundaries characterizing French society.

Just as the Arab male attire is a means of social escapism as seen in her
determination not to wear the cheap clothes of poor French women, her refusal to act
upon Paschcoff‘s22 advice to wear Arab clothes during her first encounter with the lesbian
feminist Séverine reveals Eberhardt's effort to rewrite herself as an active desiring
subject. As a voyeuristic colonial subject, Eberhardt objectifies the colonized female
subject, but resists being turned into Séverine's object of desire. Eberhardt's
objectification of the Muslim woman is also illustrated in her visit to the brothel with
Brigadier Smain to "watch the lascivious dancing and preliminaries to love-making
(Kobak 92). On her way back from El-Hamel (Algeria), Eberhardt did perform some
"fantasias" in honor of some prostitutes she met on the road:

I did some galloping along the road with Si Abbes, under the
paternal gaze of Si Ahmed Mokrarri. Some women from the
brothel were on their way back from El-Hamel (Algeria). Painted
and bedecked, they were rather pretty, and came to have a cigarette

with us. Did fantasias in their honor all along the way. Laughed a
lot. (The Passionate Nomad 107)

The "us" that Eberhardt uses to include herself in the male group of Muslim men, does

not just separate her from the "Other Without," but more importantly, it translates a

78

voyeuristic desire to see herself desired by the object of her own desire, i.e., "the Muslim
woman," under the watchful eye of Islamic patriarchy. In Arabic "fantasia" means
"ostentation." In North Africa, the fantasia is a male sport involving a set of acrobatic
movements on horseback, with loud cries, music, and rifle shots. Eberhardt's
involvement in this male sport is transgressive because she engages in a male gendered
sport and displays herself as an androgynous object of desire; one that is desired by both
the prostitutes and the men she is travelling with.

Eberhardt's male disguise seems to be a double-edged sword: while it gives vent
to her homoerotic desire, it disallows the possibility of her interaction with her upper-
class Muslim sister, like Sidi Brahim's mother:

What is she like, this great Muslim lady, whose presence I can
never enter as Si Mahmoud, the man whom everyone treats me as
being?--even if, due to indiscretions at Bechar, they have
suspicions, they carefully avoid letting me know, for this would be
a grave breach of Muslim courtesy. Does she have the serious
manner of Sidi Brahim? And what thoughts occupy the head of
this woman so specially placed: cloistered, yet invested with an

authority before which her son himself yields? (In the Shadow of
Islam 56)

V) Redefining the Seraglio

In contrast with the nineteenth century European and American women travelers,
who have been able to penetrate where no Western man has ever been before--the
bastille23 of the Muslim household--Eberhardt's disguise as an Arab man forecloses for
her the possibility of knowing and interacting with the upper-class "Muslim woman."

Her description of the "little world of women" in Kenadsa is based on hearsay, not on an

79

actual eyewitness account. She herself admits that she has never seen Sidi Brahim's
mother:
[Even though she] has charge of all the interior administration:
expenses, receipts, alms. One never sees her [my emphasis], but
her power is felt everywhere. Feared and venerated by all, this
elderly Muslim queen-mother lives here nearly cloistered, only

coming out rarely and heavily veiled in order to visit the tombs of
Sidi Ben-Bou-Ziane, and of Sidi Mohammed, her husband. (47-8)

Invented as a place of exoticism and abundant sexuality by male Orientalists in
the Renaissance, the harem was transformed by nineteenth century Western women
travelers into a desexualized space that conforms to the Victorian ideal of domesticity
(Mehnan 316). Standing against both male and female Orientalism, Eberhardt
resexualizes the North African "harem woman" and moves the Seraglio from the
enclosed space of the home into the open space of the desert. In Western Representations
of the Muslim Woman: From T ermagant to Odalisque (1999), Mohja Kahf argues that the
subjugation of the Muslim woman was barely present in the literature of the Renaissance.
The cultural trope of the oppressed Muslim woman appeared only in the nineteenth
century with the establishment of the French and British empires. In contrast with the
British traveler Katherine Ann Elwood who constructed the harem as a "retreat," a
"shrine," and an "abode of the sacred" (Melman 139), Eberhardt invents a "bohemian"
harem, where the "Muslim woman" is unveiled and on the road: either meeting a secret
lover (In the Shadow of Islam 91); near a fountain (98); or going to a marabout (99).
Eberhardt's redefinition of the harem genre challenges not only the tradition of male
Orientalism, but also the middle-class gender ideology in Europe. In contrast with the
desexualized "Muslim woman" in the writings of Victorian women travelers in the

Middle East, Eberhardt's North African "Muslim woman" is primarily a sexual being,

80

whether she is a female marabout (through the Sufi notion of transgressive love) or a
Black slave. Thus, Eberhardt uses the ethnographic authority and the very aesthetics of
the dominant bourgeois culture to subvert its gender ideology.

Eberhardt's subversion of the bourgeois ideal of the angel in the hearth is also
illustrated in her reconfiguration of the patriarchal concept of home. A social outcast in
Europe, Eberhardt tries to escape European patriarchy by finding a home elsewhere, i.e.,
in Islam and the Maghreb. Her conversion to Islam, the rival faith to Christianity, and
her marriage to an Arab constitute a challenge to the French civilizing mission in Africa.
Eberhardt's incurable romantic "malaise" (In the Shadow of Islam 102) makes her seek
freedom in the desert. Following the steps of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Valéry, she
writes: "To be alone is to be free, and freedom has been the sole happiness required by
my restless impatient nature--an arrogant nature" (107). Crossing the boundary between
the domestic and public space, she "rediscover[s] in the village's only Arab street calm
impressions of 'home'" (17). In her new home, she sleeps on the road, "on a mat in front
of the Moorish café," under the roof of "the great sky," and "the moonlit night" (22).

As 7 this chapter demonstrates, there is a split in Eberhardt's attitude towards the
North Afiican "Muslim woman." Despite her racial prejudices and complicity with the
French colonial authorities, Eberhardt at times does not see the "Muslim woman" as the
absolute Other, but rather as a mirror or imago in which she could contemplate herself.
As an alter ego, the "Muslim woman" becomes Eberhardt's metaphor to discuss European
identity. The function of the "Muslim woman" in Eberhardt's narrative goes beyond the
metaphor of colonial penetration in male Orientalism (France's "male/active" penetration

of "female/passive" North Africa) to assist in the establishment of Eberhardt's own

81

identity and place in European society. Eberhardt might have inherited her emphasis on
the "Muslim woman's" sexuality fi'om the Enlightenment's fascination with Oriental
sexuality,24 but what is more fturdamentally significant, is her use of the "Muslim
woman's" sexuality as a trope to criticize European bourgeois morality and gender
ideology.

Although ethnocentric and overtly racist at times, Eberhardt's narrative seems to
deconstruct its own discourse of racial and ethnic superiority by emphasizing the
similarities between the position of the "Occidental" and "Oriental woman." Rather than
subverting the value system underlying French colonial ideology, in identifying with the
"Other Without" and converting to Islamic mysticism, Eberhardt reverses the concept of
"cultural difference," which is central in the discourse of French imperialism. In contrast
with the paternalistic discourse of the French establishment, which appropriated the
language of feminism to attack Arabo-Islamic culture, Eberhardt not only attacks the
shallowness of Parisian feminism, but also creates the mystical "Muslim woman" as more
independent and autonomous than her French sister, stripping thus French imperialism
from the cloak of morality with which it hides and justifies its colonial project.

However, as in the discourse of male Orientalism, "the Muslim woman," is not
allowed to speak in Eberhardt's writings and is ignored as a historically resistant subject.
Eberhardt said nothing about the Algerian women's resistance to French colonialism and
their sexual and economic oppression at the hands of the French colonial Father.
Eberhardt's subversion of Western patriarchy has been recuperated by the colonial order
when Barrucand published her book under the Orientalist title Dans L'Ombre Chaude de

L'Islam. Whereas in Eberhardt's narrative, "l'ombre chaude de l'Islam" means "a new

82

understanding of love" (76), in decontextualizing the book's title from this subversive
meaning, Barrucand relocates this narrative in medieval Christianity perception of Islam
as a religion of sensuality and spiritual darkness. In doing so, Barrucand markets the

radical difference of Islam and silences the dissenting voice of this European woman.

 

' According to Pierre Amoult, Isabelle Eberhardt's father was Arthur Rimbaud. Besides their physical
resemblance, both of them had a "common destiny" that brought them to the Maghreb (Abdel-Jaouad,
"Isabelle Eberhardt: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Nomad" 93). In Ecrits intimes, Eberhardt claimed
that she was the daughter of a Turkish Muslim doctor who raped her mother (116-17).

2 According to Abdel-Jaouad, one reason why Eberhardt’s work remained to some extent unknown was
Barrucand’s claim that he co-authored her work. Recent research on Eberhardt, however, has demonstrated
that Barrucand did not make serious changes to Eberhardt’s text. See "Isabelle Eberhardt: Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Nomad" (94).

3 I am using Rice's translation in "Eberhardt's Journey from Anarchy to Complicity," Karim Hamdi and
Laura Rice, eds, Departures: Selected Writings (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1994) 195.

4 The Russian woman Barrucand charged with translating Eberhardt's entries in Russian into French.
Quoted in Edmonde Charles-Roux, Nomade j 'étais: les années Afi'icaines d 'Isabelle Eberhardt 1899-1904
(Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1995) 110.

5 Eberhardt's and Bentami's marriage to an Arab man gave them privileges they could not have had if they
had married a Russian man. The marriage to an "inferior" Other allowed them to enter marital unions
where they had the upper hand as wives on account of their racial "superiority."

6 Her real name is Caroline Rémy. Better known as the radical feminist Séverine (McMillan 20).

7 The word "feminism" here refers to women's movements and writings in nineteenth century France.

8 In contrast with Deraismes, the radical feminist Hubertine Auclert was a strong supporter of women's
right to vote and tried to keep a strong alliance between Republicanism and socialism. At sixteen, she was
expelled from a convent because the nuns saw her as demented (Clancy Smith 167). She was also "written
off" by the French police as "suffering from madness or hysterics" because she thought of men as her
equals. Quoted in McMillan (80). Auclert's feminism was closely tied with the Saint Simonian socialism
of the 18405, which attacked the patriarchal institution of the family. Referenced in Moses (230).

9 Hubertine Auclert, Les Femmes Arabes en Algérie (Paris: n.p., 1900) 3.

'° Ibid, 42-59.

” Eberhardt's project to open Qur'anic school for Muslim girls was never carried out.

‘2 In "Of Mimicry and Man," Bhabha leaves out gender in his discussion of colonial mimicry in the works
of "Kipling, Forster, Orwell, [and] Naipaul" (The Location of Culture 87).

'3 To tighten their grip over North Africa, the "French colonial policies" played Berbers against Arabs and

"resurrected the Romans as imperial progenitors of the French [and Berbers] in Africa" (David Prochaska,
Making Algeria French: Colonialism in Bo‘ne, 18 70-1 920 213).

83

 

'4 For more information about this massacre, see Djebar, Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade, trans. Dorothy
S. Blair (Portsmouth: Routledge, 1993) 64-79.

‘5 "Gueux" and " Gueuses," Le Grand Robert de la langue Francaise, 1987 ed.

‘6 Charles-Roux hints at the possibility of an affair between Eberhardt and her Tunisian correspondent in
Nomade j'étais (99). Charles-Roux also reports that Ali's mother-in-law showed Isabelle the door after it
was rumored in Tunis that Ali was taking money from her numerous lovers. In front of a witness, Ali did
return to Isabelle the money be borrowed from her to go to Istanbul, and their correspondence gradually
ended after that (108).

'7 Mackworth's translation (142).

'8 The "Other Without" refers here to the "Muslim woman" as the gendered subaltem.

'9 My translation.

20 Malek Alloula argues that the production of the Muslim wonurn as prostitute provided an aesthetic and
moral justification for the colonization of Algeria. See The Colonial Harem, trans. Myrna Godzich and
Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986) 120.

2' Lella Khaddoudja is the only woman from the native elite towards whom Eberhardt feels connected.
This is probably because Lella Khaddoudja's frequent pilgrimages to Mecca made her break away from her
patriarchal role as mother and wife and live on the road like Eberhardt herself.

22 In a letter, Paschkofi‘ gave Eberhardt this advice: "Wherever you go you should present yourself in
elegant Oriental costume. Abou Naddara [Eberhardt's Egyptian mentor] will tell you that his clothes did a
lot to make him the fashion [in Paris]" (Mackworth 71).

23 In contrast with the radical feminist Hubertine Auclert and Marie Bujéga--daughter and wife of French
colonial civil administrators--Eberhardt shows no interest in serving the "colonial state" by bringing
"France into the domesticated space of the secluded Arab woman" (Clancy Smith 171).

2‘ Mohja Kahf studies this shifting image of the Muslim woman in Western Representations of Muslim
Woman: From Termagant to Odalisque (Austin: University of Texas, 1999).

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Chapter Three: The Muslim Woman and the Iconography of the Veil in
French Feminism and Psychoanalysis

In the preceding chapter, I studied the production of the Maghrebian Muslim
woman in the writings of Isabelle Eberhardt, a Russian woman traveling in French
colonial Tunisia and Algeria at the turn of the nineteenth century. In this chapter, I
examine the metaphor of the veil and the production of the "Muslim woman" in those
discourses situated on the French Left in the imperial and post-imperial era. This chapter
questions the viability of Western feminist and psychoanalytic theory in the North
African context and argues that these discourses derive at times from the same Orientalist
impulse we find in the male Orientalism discussed by Edward Said. Using de Lauretis's
notion of "gender" as "representation" (Technologies of Gender 3), I will examine how
the metaphor of the veil in psychoanalysis and French feminism derives fiom earlier
discourses on Muslim women and Islam. The first part of this chapter examines Fanon's
discourse on the veil in his essay "Algeria Unveiled." Even though situated on the left,
Fanon's discourse seems to derive from a patriarchal and sometimes an Orientalist
impulse. The second section examines Jacques Lacan's notion of the "veiled phallus" in
view of the primacy of the specular in Western metaphysics and the discourses on the
veil generated by the Algerian Revolution. Using de Lauretis's notion that the subject of
feminism speaks from a doubled position that is both inside/outside ideology, the third
part of this chapter argues that in contrast with Simone de Beauvoir, and Luce Irigaray,
Helene Cixous's écriture féminine--especially her recent work Les Ré‘veries de la femme
sauvage: Sce‘nes primitives (2000)--presents a "doubled vision" (Technologies of Gender

10), which both reproduces and resists those Orientalist discourses on the veil.

85

In "Transparent Veils, Western Women Dis-Orient the East," Billie Mehnan
argues that the discourse of the veil precedes the existence of Islam and the colonial
situation. Used at first in the Christian East, the veil "touched on the definite status of
femininity and female sexuality in Western culture" (461). In Pauline gender ideology,
"a woman can prophesy only when her head is veiled, because man's head represents the
spirit in Christ whereas woman's is associated with flesh and the body--that is, with
sexuality" (461-62). In the Age of Enlightenment, the veil was "[desacralized]" (462),
but "retained its association with purity and virginity." While it was increasingly being
"eroticized," it became used in a metaphysical sense, "the ability to unveil" was
associated with the idea of "uncovering" truth or "identity." Gradually, "the veiled
woman was transformed from an ambiguous symbol of female empowerment to a site of
alterity" (463). In "The Newly Veiled Woman, Irigaray, Specularity, and the Islamic
Veil," Anne-Emmanuelle Berger discusses the symbol of the veil in Irigaray's text as an
"instance of theoretical imperialism" (94). In contrast with Melman who presents the veil
as a Christian symbol, and Berger who strips the veil from its Judeo-Christian
background and presents it as if it were an authentic Islamic cultural icon appropriated by
an imperialist Western feminist/psychoanalytic center, I would like to treat the issue of
the veil from a non-originary point of view. Rather than presenting the problem of the
veil in terms of a Western appropriation of an Oriental signifier, I would like to pose the
problem differently: How can the veiled Muslim women speak in these Western
discourses on the veil? And what are the implications of applying these theories of the

veil to the North African context?

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In Technologies of Gender, De Lauretis argues that the human subject is produced
through discourse and that gender is a "representation" or a "construction" (3) that is
produced and reproduced by various discourses. Revealing how feminism inherited
Western phallocentrism, de Lauretis argues that the "construction of gender "as sexual
difference" has shaped "feminist interventions in the arena of formal and abstract
knowledge, in the epistemologies and cognitive fields defined by the social and physical
sciences as well as the human sciences or humanities" (1). From this perspective, the
metaphor of the "veiled phallus" in the psychoanalytic works of Lacan (Ecrits 288) and
Gallop (Reading Lacan 130) and the metaphor of the veil in French feminism in general
derive from a pre-established Western tradition that favors visibility/presence over
invisibility/absence and truth/light over concealment/darkness.

Because of the primacy of the visible in Westem epistemology,l the veil discourse
in French feminism and psychoanalysis focuses only on what is concealed/hidden, not on
the specific local and social significance of the veil. In French language, the word voile2
("veil") appears as a multiple signifier. In the seventeenth century, it referred to a piece
of cloth covering the statues of the Gods, monuments etc. Starting from the sixteenth
century onwards, the verb voiler ("to veil") was used metaphorically in the sense of
"making less visible," "concealing" and "masking" light or truth. In the nineteenth
century, following the rise of French imperialism, the veil referred not only to the
tchador/veil covering the face of the Muslim woman, but also to the Arabic word litham,
which is a veil covering the face of the male Touareg living in the Sahara Desert.
Whereas in some parts of the Muslim world, both men and women wear the veil, in

Europe, le voile ("the veil") is an exclusively feminine garment worn by brides, widows,

87

and nuns. In the nineteenth century, the veil was invented anew as a marker of cultural
difference, i.e., a symbol of the Muslim woman's sexual oppression by Islam and Arab

culture.3

I) The Algerian Woman and the Dynamism of the Veil: Patriarchy, Nationalism,
and Orientalism in Frantz Fanon's "Algeria Unveiled"

A Martinican psychiatrist appointed to work for the French army in Algeria,
Frantz Fanon, a Marxist black revolutionary, soon defected to the Algerian side and
joined the FLN in its fight against the French colonial regime. Fanon's views on the veil
and the "Muslim woman" in "Algeria Unveiled" come as a response to the Battle of the
Veil launched by the French colonial government to weaken the ranks of the Algerian
resistance during the War of Independence (1954-1962). In May 1958, the French
generals in Algiers, showing their resolution to keep Algeria French, dragged Algerian
women from their homes and publicly unveiled them, shouting "Vive l'Algérie
francaise!" Hence, it is within the context of Algerian nationalism, Hegel's dialectic, and
French colonial discourse that I shall examine F anon's views on the "historic dynamism"
(65) of the veil.

Throughout "Algeria Unveiled," there is a tension that arises from F anon's
ambivalent discourse about the veil, Algerian culture, and the "Algerian woman."
Presenting the issue of the veil through a Hegelian dialectic, F anon writes that the veil
became a symbol of Algerian identity only because the French constructed it as a sign of
cultural difference/Islamic inferiority: "It is the white man who creates the Negro. But it

is the Negro who creates negritude. To the colonialist offensive against the veil, the

88

colonized opposes the cult of the veil" (47). In his Hegelian reading of the veil, Fanon
overlooks the symbolic exploitation of the "Muslim woman's" body in the patriarchal
discourses of French colonialism and Algerian nationalism. Just as the French male
imperial order waged its war of colonization on the female body of Algeria, the Algerian
nationalist male elite turned the "Algerian woman" and the domestic space of the home
into the site of the anti-colonial struggle. The French colonial image of Algeria as "a
prey fought over with equal ferocity by Islam and France" (41) reveals not only the
"policy" and "philosophy" of the French occupier as F anon says, but also the patriarchal
ideology of the colonized. Because she is the symbol of Algeria, the "Muslim woman"
becomes the flesh/"prey" over which both the French and Algerian men/predators are
fighting.

Throughout his essay, F anon wavers between the "historic dynamism" (63) of the
veil and the fixedness of Algerian/Islamic culture. In contrast with the colonial French
discourse where the veil appears as the symbol of women's oppression, Fanon presents it
as an unstable semiotic icon. During the anti-colonial struggle in Morocco, "the white
veil was replaced with the black veil" (36) to protest the exile of King Muhammad by the
French colonial authorities. In Algeria, Kabilean and Arab women in the rural areas are
often unveiled. Fanon also notes that the veil was initially Worn because "[Islamic]
tradition demanded a rigid separation of the sexes" (63). When the French became "bent
on unveiling Algeria," the veil turned into a "mechanism of resistance." During the
Battle of Algiers (1958), both the removal and resumption of the hai‘k ("veil") served as a
"technique of camouflage" (61). At first, the veil was strategically removed to carry

weapons for the Algerian fighters. Passing for a French woman, the unveiled Algerian

89

woman would carry in her suitcase weapons, funds and tracts to the fidais ("suicide
bombers"). When the French colonial authorities discovered the trick, the veil was once
again restored "to conceal packages" for the Revolution. When the French were alerted,
all women became suspect and were forced to pass through "magnetic detectors" (62).
After the events of May 1958, "the veil was resumed, but stripped once and for all of its
exclusively traditional dimension" (63). In contrast with the semiotic dynamism of the
veil in the colonial era, F anon constructs it as a fixed and ahistorical icon in pre-colonial
Algeria: before the French occupation, Fanon asserts, the veil was "an undifferentiated
element in a homogeneous whole" (47).

In his reading of the veil, F anon recognizes the "power of nationalism as a scopic
politics" (McClintock, "No Longer in a Future Heaven," Dangerous Liaisons 97). Just as
the veil was constructed as the symbol of cultural difference in French colonial discourse,
the veiled Muslim woman was produced as the visible marker of Islamic identity in
Algerian nationalism. As F anon puts it:

It is by their apparel that types of society first become known,
whether through written accounts and photographic records or
motion pictures. Thus, there are civilizations without hats. The
fact of belonging to a given cultural group is usually revealed by
clothing traditions [. . .] One may remain for a long time unaware
of the fact that a Moslem does not eat pork or that he denies
himself daily sexual relations during the month of Ramadan but the

veil worn by the women appears with such constancy that it
generally suffices to characterize Arab society. (35)

F anon's statement reveals that rather than being a given, cultures are fabricated through
clothing, "motion pictures" and "photographic records." This inventedness of culture,
however, is at odds with Fanon's nationalist construction of the veil as the symbol of

Algeria's authentic identity. Reproducing the Arab nationalist discourse where the veil is

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symbolic of a pre-colonial Islamic identity, Fanon states that the veil stands for Algerian
"society's uniqueness" (35) and "originality" (37). "French colonialism," he says, "has
settled itself in the very center of the Algerian individual and has undertaken a sustained
work of cleanup, of expulsion of self, of rationally pursued mutilation" (65). The French
campaign against the veil epitomizes the colonial effort to "expel" or "clean up" the true
"self" of Algeria. Likewise, underneath Fanon's fear that Westernization might lead to
the "erosion" of Algeria's "national culture" (39) lies the assumption that cultures can be
stocked/frozen and contained within a special locale. Although situated on the Left,
F anon deploys at times the discourse of French Orientalism. Even though he rejects the
colonial narrative about the oppression, "confinement," "humility," and "the silent
existence" of the "Algerian woman" (65), Fanoniirnplicitly reproduces the same discourse
when he states that the Algerian woman's life is "limited in scope" because of the
"sclerosis" (66) Islamic tradition must assume during the anti-colonial struggle.

In equating the violence of colonization with the rape of the Algerian woman's
body,4 Fanon is reproducing the patriarchal discourse of nationalism, where lands and
women's bodies are presented as men's property. When he is pressured by his boss to
"exhibit" his wife, the Algerian man feels that he is "prostituting his wife" (40). hr the
erotic discourse of the French conquest, "the flesh" of the Algerian woman (symbol of
Algeria) is "laid bare" (42) by the "aggressive" French occupier/rapist. Unveiled and
raped, the "Algerian woman" is subjected to "a double deflowering" (45) without
"consent" or "acceptance." In contrast with McClintock's reading of "Algeria Unveiled,"
I argue here that Fanon reproduces rather than refutes the "erotics of ravishment"

underlying the rhetoric of the French conquest ("No Longer in a Future Heaven" 96). By

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phallicizing the "Algerian woman" who penetrates into the heart of the European city,
F anon is reversing the colonial metaphor of sexual penetration. In the Battle of Algiers,
the Algerian woman who conceals pistols and "grenades" (50) under her veil becomes a
"veiled phallus" that threatens to emasculate not only the Algerian men as McClintock
(98) argues, but also the French male colonial order. Reversing the colonial metaphor,
the "Algerian [phallic] woman penetrates a little further into the flesh of the Revolution"
(54). In this nationalist narrative, the reconquest of Algeria also involves a "double
deflowering":
But after a certain period the pattern of activity that the struggle
involved shifted in the direction of the European city. The
protective mantle of the Kasbah, the almost organic curtain of
safety that the Arab town weaves round the native, withdrew, and

the Algerian woman, exposed was sent forth into the conqueror's
city. (51)

As a "veiled phallus," the Algerian woman has to break first the "organic curtain"/hymen
of the Kasbah before penetrating into the effeminized European city. In reproducing the
erotics of the French conquest, Fanon remains, despite his Marxist revolutionary agenda,
trapped within the phallocentric discourse of French imperialism.

Fanon's assertion that the veil "distorts the Algerian woman's corporal pattern"
(59) is quite patriarchal. For "the city woman," the veil has become second nature:
"accustomed to confinement, her body did not have the normal mobility before a limitless
horizon of avenues, of unfolded sidewalks, of houses, of people dodged or bumped into"
(49). The Algerian woman feels "naked" when she walks unveiled: "the veil protects,
reassures, isolates, [without it] the unveiled body seems to escape, to dissolve" (59). In a
paternalistic tone, F anon adds that as part of the war effort, his female comrade must not

only "[relearn] her body" (59), but also "achieve a victory" over "her childish fears" (52).

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Fanon also makes excuses for the sexual harassment the unveiled "Algerian woman" is
subjected to in the street of Algiers while carrying weapons for the revolution.
Dismissing sexual harassment as a universal male behavior, Fanon writes: "The unveiled
Algerian girl who 'walks the street' is very often noticed by young men who behave like
young men all over the world, but who use a special approach as the result of the idea
people habitually have of one who has discarded the veil" (53).

For F anon, only the French colonizer is frustrated by the "woman who sees
without being seen" (44). The Algerian man "does not see her. There is even a
permanent intention not to perceive the feminine profile, not to pay attention to women."
Revisiting F anon's discourse on the veil, Djebar asserts that the veiled woman frustrates
both the colonizer and the Algerian. In Women of Algiers, Djebar writes:

There's also the danger that the feminine glance, liberated to

circulation outside, runs the risk at any moment of exposing the

other glances of the moving body [breasts, sex, navel]. As if all of

a sudden the whole body were to begin to "defy" [and threaten

men's] exclusive right to stare. (139)
In Fantasia, Algerian women willingly participated in the Algerian Revolution: they
were not entrusted with direct action (F anon 53), nor did they need their husband's
permission "to leave on an assignment " (Fanon 59). Djebar's resurrection of the voices
of J ennet, Zohra, and Cherifa in Fantasia shows that Algerian women did not participate
in the nationalist struggle at the invitation of Algerian men as F anon claims.

Because the veil was removed during the course of the revolutionary struggle,
F anon seems to imply that it will ultimately be abandoned to meet the demands of

independence. In the socialist future of Algeria, Fanon's sister in the fight against

imperialism seems unveiled, yet subordinated to a nationalist male leadership.

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II) The "Veiled Phallus" in the Land of Veiled Women: Reading Jacques Lacan in a
North African Contexts

Defending Lacan against his feminist critics,6 Jane Gallop reminds them of the
nature of Lacan's text--where nothing is really what it seems--and of his assertion that the
phallus "can play its role only when veiled" (Reading Lacan 130). Because "metonymic
interpretations" (133) can also be phallocentric, Gallop calls for a new kind of feminine
reading that transcends the opposition between metaphor and metonymy. Using Lacan's
notion of the "latent phallus," Gallop argues that there is an inevitable latency to all open,
visible meanings. Unlike the unproblematic division between the hidden and the surface
meaning in the conventional Freudian act of psychoanalytical interpretation, Lacan
advances the thesis that every time a meaning moves to the surface, becomes open and
not latent, it is simultaneously trying to hide its own reasons for making that meaning
visible.

Lacan's equation of the veil with the unconscious can be traced to Freud's
metaphor of the veil, in which he claims that female sexuality, in contrast with that of the
male, is inaccessible to psychoanalytic research. For Freud, women's sexuality is "veiled
in impenetrable darkness" not only because of cultural inhibitions, but also because of
"the conventional reticence and insincerity of women" (Three Contributions to the
Theory of Sex 16). Freud's Africanist construction of female sexuality as "lack" or "the
dark continent" (55) has been reproduced in Gallop's perception of metonymy as "the
dark continent of rhetoric," an effeminized symbolicspace associated with the invisibility

and "hiddenness of female genitalia" (Gallop 127).

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In "The Agency of the Letter," Lacan deliberately plays on the ambiguity in the
word voile ("veil") in the French language. Besides the inherent duplicity between
concealing and revealing in the act of veiling (Ecrits 156), the word voile occupies an
ambiguous position between male and female in French. It means a "ship" when
preceded by the feminine definite article la, and a "veil" when it is preceded by the
masculine definite article 1e. Lacan's notion that the phallus "can play its role only when
veiled" ("Sigrrification of the Phallus," Ecrits 288) and Gallop's reproduction of Lacan's
metaphor (in her discussion of the interdependence between metonymy and metaphor)
raise many questions as to the consequences of applying such a concept to the Algerian
context, where the FIS ("Islamic Salvation Army") holds that Islamic identity lies in the
control of the "Muslim woman's" dangerous sexuality. Because she possesses the
phallus, i.e., the power of seduction or fitna, the "Muslim woman" must constantly be
supervised; her sexuality controlled through the institutions of segregation and seclusion.
From the standpoint of Muslim women activists, this metaphor could be disabling
because it reinforces patriarchal fears of women's hidden powers, justifying thus women's
seclusion.

Even though Lacan was not himself involved in the Algerian Revolution, his
stepdaughter, Laurence Bataille, joined in 1958 a French left-wing network, which
collected fimds for the FLN (Elisabeth Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan 295). She was
arrested on 10 May 1960 and sent to the Roquette prison for aiding the Algerian rebels.
In prison, Lacan brought her an extract from his seminar on the "Ethics of
Psychoanalysis" where he talks about "Antigone's revolt against Creon" (295). She was

quickly released after her lawyer (Roland Dumas) managed to get the charges dropped.

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A left-wing intellectual, Lacan could only support his stepdaughter's political
commitment. However, the metaphor of the "veiled phallus" disturbingly recalls the
colonial French discourses produced on the Algerian woman during the Battle of the Veil
in the 19505. If the "French administration" focused their efforts on deveiling the
"Algerian woman" to win the war, it was because their "sociologists" and "specialists"
had argued that "beneath the patrilineal pattern of Algerian society" lied a deeper
"structure of matrilineal essence" ("Unveiling Algeria" 57). To destroy Algerian
resistance, "[they] must fust of all conquer the women" hiding "behind the veil" (37-3 8).
Lacan's metaphor embodies the colonial French argument that "behind the visible,
manifest Algerian patriarchy" lies a "basic" yet invisible matriarchal system. The
doubleness underlying the concept of the "veiled phallus" also recalls the doubleness of
these discourses produced on the "Algerian woman" during the Battle of the Veil, where
she appears both as the locus of power and victim of the Algerian man's barbarity.

Put in a Maghrebian context, the "veiled phallus" can stand for the subaltem
effeminized Oriental phallic order that Said discussed in Orientalism. This "haremization
effect"7 raises questions as to the implications of applying Lacan's notion of the "veiled
phallus" to the male Touareg who wear a veil to protect their faces from the sun of the
Sahara Desert. In wearing the litham ("veil"), the male Touareg would seem to embody
Lacan's notion of the "veiled phallus" and also acquire an ambivalent sexual identity in
the eyes of those Europeans traveling in the Maghreb. The bisexuality of the male
Touareg falls within the Orientalist trope that Islam's excessive sexual restrictions on
women are thought to encourage the Eastern "malady of homosexuality." Lacan's

metaphor recalls the ethnocentrism underlying Edouard Duchesnes's book De la

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prostitution dans la ville D'Alger depuis la conquéte (1853). In this nineteenth century
French colonial narrative, Duchesnes explains homosexuality--the "Arab Muslim
deviance"--by the hot African climate and the Islamic socio-cultural mores. Explaining
Eastern deviant sexuality by Islam's seclusion and veiling of women, Duchesnes wrote:
"[Because] young Algerian men are so handsome and go about in public unveiled, side
by side with veiled females, homosexuality is thereby encouraged " (qtd. in Clancy Smith
159).

In "Veiling over Desire," Doane argues that Lacan's metaphor of the veiled
phallus "reverses the usual terms of sexual difference in relation to the visual field" (132).
In contrast with Doane who reads Lacan's destabilization of perception outside French
colonial ideology, I would like to examine Lacan's metaphor of the "veiled phallus" in
view of those discourses produced on Algerian women's participation in guerilla warfare
at the moment of decolonization. At first, the Algerian woman was strategically unveiled
and transformed by the fidai' into a "woman-arsenal" carrying "automatic pistols" or
"bombs" in her suitcases (58). When the French discovered the trick, the Algerian
woman reverted to a strategic wearing of the haik "to conceal" the grenades "from the
eyes of the occupier" (61). As a result, all women became suspicious: French and
Algerian, veiled and unveiled. This recalls the destabilization of perception in Lacan's
and Gallop's theory in which everything is indiscriminately suspect.

The notion of duplicity underlying Lacan's metaphor of the "veiled phallus"
cannot be dissociated from the threat of Islamic "terrorism" in France after the Algerian
war of independence. Ever since the Algerian Revolution, the image of the veil in

Western mass media became linked with an increasing fear of the Islamic threat.

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Whereas the nineteenth century French discourse focused on unveiling the body of the
Algerian woman/nation, the discourse on the veil starting from the late 1950s onwards
has shifted to "hyperveiling"8 the female Muslim body. As Neil MacMaster and Toni
Lewis put it: "The Iranian Revolution of 1979, the war in Lebanon [in the 1970s], the
Gulf War [1992]... and the spread of fundamentalism into the Maghreb, especially
Algeria, have created a level of anxiety that is higher in France than for any other
Western nation" (128).9 Lacan's image of the "veiled phallus" also recalls these Western
press reports or fihns in the 19503, where "heavily veiled women are shown carrying
weapons, establishing an equation between the oppression of women, fanaticism and
terrorism" (128). In these images, the veil becomes the symbol of Islam's medieval
barbarity, fanaticism, and thus irredeemable alterity. In the discourse of the French right,
le foulard ("scarf") has become since the 1980s associated with feelings of cultural
anxiety. In "Tchadors, Excision, Cannibals," the right wing journalist Max Clos wrote in

the Figaro:

Can we accept in our land excision and cannibalism? It seems
like we are far fi'om the issue of the veil here. But in reality we
are not. It is the same problem minus the butchery and the
mutilation, for the consequences are the same on what is
primordial; the safeguard of our identity. (MacMaster 132)10

My major argument here is that the scopic phallocentrism in Lacan and Freud has
found its way in the discourse of some French feminists, who despite their dismantling of
the workings of Western patriarchy at home, have failed to decolonize their writing from

the concept of difference at the heart of the Euro-centric universalist mode of thinking.

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III) Between Complicity and Transvaluation: Helene Cixous's Double Vision of the
Muslim Woman and the Veil
a) The Iconography of the Veil and the Harem in Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray

Even though de Beauvoir, in collaboration with Gisele Halirni, mobilized the left
forces in France to bring to trial the torturers of Djamila Boupacha (an Algerian woman
wrongfully sequestered and raped by her French torturers),ll her views on Muslim
women are still informed by the French Orientalist tradition. In The Second Sex, first
published in France in 1953, de Beauvoir reiterates the Orientalist stereotype of the
harem with its associated meaning of seclusion and veiling as a place of female idleness
and sexual indulgence. Secluded from the outside world, the harem slave "has to kill
time" by taking a "passion for rose preserves and perfumed baths" (603). Equating the
harem with a brothel," de Beauvoir states that if the harem woman "eagerly seeks sexual
pleasure, it is very often because she is deprived of it." To escape "masculine ugliness,"
the slave woman "finds consolation in creamy sauces, heavy wines, velvets, the caress of
water, of sunshine, of a woman friend, of a young lover." In this feminist text, the
"Muslim woman," as a monolithic category, functions as a metonymy for Islam's
inferiority. For de Beauvoir, the "abject condition" of the "Muslim woman" is caused not
only by "the feudal structure" of her society, but also by "the warlike ideals" of Islam
which "has dedicated man directly to Death and has deprived woman of her magic"
(166).

In French, the expression le voile d 'une vierge means not only "the veil of a
bride," but also the hymen or "the veil of virginity." This throws light on the intimate

connection between the veil, language, and the female body in French feminism. In

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"Veiled Lips," using the myth of Persephone, Irigaray questions the woman's position in
"a system of representation which depends on the repression of her difference" (93). In
the Greek myth, Persephone was abducted by her father Hades to live in his underworld
against the will of her mother Demeter. With the intercession of heavenly God Jupiter,
Persephone was to pass the winter with her father and summer with her mother. Triply
veiled, the kore (virgin), violated, stolen, and veiled ("Violer. Voler. Voiler") (105),
stands for the absence and burial of women's "magic" in language. In a man's language,
woman is always the "veil," "the sheath," or "the envelope" which "assist[s] him [and]
support[s] him" (106). As Persephone, the daughter was "stolen away from her mother,
from herself, by her father, the brother" (112), the veil in Irigaray's essay becomes
symbolic not only of women's oppression by patriarchy, but also of their alienation from
the maternal. Even though Irigaray does not mention any Muslim women in her work,
she has influenced many North African women writers such as Djebar. Because of the
reliance of Muslim women writers on French feminist theories, one question needs to be
addressed here: How can the veiled Muslim women speak or be read in a system of
representation where the veil--the sign of her cultural difference--is "synonymous with
rape, ravishment, theft, and death" (114)?

This image of the veiled "woman" as wrapped goods in Irigaray's works can be
traced to Freud who claims that women cover themselves with clothes and "jewels in
order to hide [their] organs" (Speculum 115) (1985), that is to say, their "lack." "The
duplicity of the veil" for Freud serves to "cover a lesser 'value' and to overvalue the
fetish" (Speculum 16). Reflecting similar imagery in "Algeria Unveiled," Fanon writes

that the French doctors are often disappointed to discover that Algerian women are

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"commonplace" and "vulgar" when "they remove their veils" during "medical
consultation" (44-45). In contrast with the French men who wonder why the Algerian
women are veiled if they have nothing to hide, European women in Algeria read the veil
as part of universal feminine coquetry. Just as "beauty treatment, hairdos, fashion" (45)
in the West are used to disguise "fenrinine imperfections," the veil of the "Algerian
woman" serves to "conceal" and "cultivate the man's doubt and desire." The male

"customer," however, is often misled by "the wrapping in which the 'merchandise has
been presented to him. The European women conclude that the wrapping in which the
"Algerian woman" comes in "does not really alter [her] nature, nor [her value]." Despite
his Marxist views, F anon does not critique the commodification of the "Algerian woman"
in the discourse of the European women. In contrast with Fanon, Irigaray writes that the
veiling of women's bodies serves to enhance their value in a "homosexual" system of
exchange. As "fetish-obj ects" exchanged between men, women are the manifestation and
the circulation of a power of the Phallus" (Speculum 182-83). Reversing Freud's
metaphor, Irigaray writes that women veil themselves not because they are hiding the
"deficiency of [their] genitals" (115), but in order to compete in a capitalistic economy
controlled by men (114). Here, the veil does not hide women's lack, but enables the
commodification of the female body. Even though she critiques the capitalist
commodification of the woman's body over which F anon remains silent, Irigaray leaves
out all differences between women and reproduces the universalist claim in Western

feminism that all women are oppressed regardless of their differences of class, race, and

sexual orientation.

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Even though she criticizes Lacan for representing only the male subject as he
reflects and contemplates himself in the mirror, Irigaray does not reject specularization as
a constitutive condition for identity. To the flat mirror in Lacan's analytic theory, she
substitutes the speculum, a curved instrument, which allows women to understand
themselves and explore their sex (Speculum 146). Even though the speculum emphasizes
female specificity and obliterates the symmetrical "self-representation" of the "male
mirror" (Elizabeth Grosz, Sexual Subversions xxii) (1989), it is still contingent upon the
primacy of the visible when deployed as a gynecological tool. Given the primacy of
female visibility in Irigaray's feminist project, the veiled woman can only be read as a
silent and "submissive slave" (87). The strategic shift in Djebar's writings from using
French feminist aesthetics in the 19803 to the deployment of Islamic feminism alter the
break out of the Algerian Civil War, indicates her search for a more empowering feminist
framework; one that responds to the particularities of the local patriarchy. In advocating
Muslim women's rights from an Islamic point of view, Djebar is acknowledging the
limits of applying French feminist theory to the Maghreb. This is why in Loin de
Médine, Djebar reinvents the House of the Prophet through the lens of both Islamic

fenrinism and écriture feminine.

b) The Decree Crémieux and the Aryanization of the Algerian Jews

In Les Réveries, Cixous's perception of the Muslim woman and the veil seems
less Eurocentric than that of de Beauvoir or Irigaray. In this section, I propose to explain
the ambivalent discourse on the veil and the "Muslim woman" in Cixous's writings in

view of the French colonial policy towards the Algerian Jews, the racist discourses

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against Jews and Arabs, and Cixous's self-proclaimed literary identity. In the early years
of the conquest of Algeria (1830), the 1 French colonial attitude and policy towards
Algeria's Jews and Arabs was the same. In 1837, Maréchal Bugeaud called for the
expulsion of all the Jews from Algeria. In 1847, Doctor Bodichon proposed to settle the
native question by "[exterrninating] all Arabs" (Richard Ayoun and Bernard Cohen, Les
Juifs d 'Algérie 121). This changed however, with the Crémieux Decree of 1870, which
automatically granted the Algerian Jews French citizenship provided that they abandon
Rabbinic laws. In France and colonial Algeria, the right-wing circles opposed the
Crémieux Decree as it gave the Algerian Jews too much power in the municipal elections
(Ayoun 128) and "public administration" (134). The Crémieux Decree was not extended
however to the rest of North Africa. The Tunisian Jews had to wait for the Morinaud
Law of 1923 to be granted French citizenship, but still "on an individual basis" (Laskier
24). In Morocco, because France refused to grant them French citizenship, the Jews
remained under the jurisdiction of Islamic law as ahl dhimma ("People of the Book")
(Laskier 35).

In Algeria, the Westernization and integration of the Jews in French society
depends on their "abnegation" of the Rabbinic laws such as the yboum or ("levirate")
(142), whereby a brother-in-law marries his brother's widow. The Crémieux Decree
made it illegal for a Rabbi to marry a couple without them having first a civil marriage.
As early as 1873, the Rabbi L. Isidor wrote to his co-religionists: "In order to be French,
you have to abandon your dear customs, and the practices which seem sacred to you.
Look at our brothers in France and behave like them. We honor our faith by showing it is

compatible with civilization" (Ayoun 142).

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As Ayoun and Cohen put it: "It is not the alliance with the Zionist Jewish
Nationalist project which isolated the Algerian Judaism from the indigenous society, but
its acceptance without any hesitation of la Francité ("Frenchness") (152). As early as
1871, French colonial policy played Arabs and Jews against each other (160). For the
Jewish intelligentsia, the Arab anti-colonial struggle was constructed as a
misunderstanding of "the virtues of occidental democracy" (164). After the Balfour
Declaration of 1917, very few Algerian Jews immigrated to Israel. Because Algeria's
Jews were very attached to "French culture" (Laskier 315), most of them immigrated to
France. The 'aliya to Israel attracted only the poor Jews fi'om Constantine and the M'zab.

During the Algerian revolution (1954-62), with few exceptions like Albert
Memmi, the Jews of Algeria and Tunisia generally did not participate in the anti-colonial
struggle. Whereas the Arab population perceived them as collaborating with the colonial
French order, the French warned them against collaborating with the F LN in Algeria and
the Neo-Destour Party in Tunisia (Laskier 261-62). In Algeria, because the Jewish
leaders as French citizens were reluctant to join the nationalist struggle, there were
bloody attacks against them in Constantine, Orléanville, and Batrra (Laskier 318-19).
Starting from May 1956, the Jews of Constantine organized themselves into
organizations like the Misgeret to defend themselves, and to launch counterattacks
against the F LN (Laskier 319). Also, because they were French citizens, some Algerian
Jews were "reservists in the French army." Some of them were even used in the French
army headquarters as "interrogators of FLN sympathizers" (Laskier 321), because they
spoke both French and Arabic.

In 1960 the F LN made an official statement in which it addressed Algeria's Jews:

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You are an integral part of the Algerian people; you are not asked
to choose between France and Algeria, but to become effective
citizens of your true country. Either you choose to function fully in
this country where the future will inaugurate freedom and
democratic principles to be enjoyed by all the nation's children; or
else you accept to live under the reign of contempt and to be
content with a citizenship granted by your oppressors within a
context which is in contradiction even with the most elementary
human rights. (qtd. in Laskier 329)

Even though the Comité Juif Algérien d'Etudes Sociales responded that they had no
authority to speak on behalf of all the Jews in Algeria, they stated that they would "live in
humiliation" if they "renounced a citizenship for the preservation of which [they] always
fought, to which [they] remain attached with a faithfulness that deserves respect, and
which inspired [them] with its dignity and honor" (Laskier 329-30). After the Evian
agreement of 1962 according Algeria its independence, there was a sharp decrease in the
Algerian Jewish population. In summer 1962, only 10,000 Jews remained in Algeria, and
most of them departed for France (Laskier 334). The bad socialist economy of
"autogestion" under the regime of Ahmad Ben-Bella and Houari Boumedienne drove out

the rest of the Jews in the late sixties and early seventies (Laskier 342-43).

c) Looking Through the Lens of Aryan Sycorax: The Muslim Woman and the Veil in the
T ext-Lait of Héle‘ne Cixous

In "Difference, Intersubjectivity, and Agency in the Colonial and Decolonizing
Spaces of Cixous's 'Sorties,"' Sue Thomas argues that in her search for a maternal
mythical symbolic, Cixous reproduces the Orientalist discourse of subduing and
inhabiting Africa as a black and effeminate space. In relying on a Western masculinist

universal symbolic, Cixous ends up by recolonizing the "dark continent" and inhabiting

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the bodies of its women, namely, Cleopatra and Dido. Instead of the uniform Orientalist
vision Thomas finds in Cixous's discourse on Africa and its women, my own reading of
Cixous's "The Laugh of the Medusa" (1976), La Jeune née (The Newly Born Woman)
(1975), Héléne Cixous: Photos de racines (1994), and Les Réveries de lafemme sauvage:
sce‘nes primitives (2000), reveals both conformity and resistance to the French colonial
discourse on the Maghrebian "Muslim woman" and the veil. I propose to read Cixous's
ambivalence towards Afiica and the North African woman in view of de Lauretis's notion
that the feminist subject "is at the same time inside and outside the ideology of gender,
and conscious of being so, conscious of that twofold pull, of that division, that doubled
vision" (10). Hence Cixous's ambivalence towards Africa and the "Muslim woman" will
be read against two warring ideological systems: first, the "Francisation" of the Algerian
Jews and Cixous's internalization of Western Orientalist discourse; and second Cixous's
resistance to that process of Aryanization through her self-proclaimed imaginary identité
littéraire ("literary identity") (Héléne Cixous 205).

In "The Laugh of the Medusa," Cixous addresses the problem of creating a
feminine language in terms of change. "The future," she writes, "must no longer be
determined by the past" (245). The question is then how to create a feminine language
that breaks free from earlier male colonialist discourses. In "Sorties," Cixous makes the
claim that her écriture féminine can "escape the infernal repetition" and reproduction of
the old "system," and helps "invent new worlds (The Newly Born Woman 72). However,
in her search for a maternal pre-symbolic order, Cixous reproduces those colonialist
masculinist metaphors referring to Afiica as a woman, the "dark continent," and a

primitive space that is "below" or "before culture" ("The Laugh of the Medusa," New

106

French F eminisms 247). As she insists on writing the female body and on recuperating
the woman's voice, the "harem" and its associated meanings of veiling and seclusion
becomes a metaphor for patriarchy's repression of female sexuality and silencing of
women's voices:
It is writing, from and toward women, and by taking up the
challenge of speech which has been governed by the phallus, that
women will confirm women in a place other than that which is
reserved in and by the symbolic, that is, in a place other than
silence. Women should break out of the snare of silence. They

shouldn't be conned into accepting a domain which is the margin
or the harem. (251)

In the above passage, the veil is produced as an unchanging signifier of female
victimization. Just as "hierarchy," in the words of Arjun Appadurai, is "associated" with
"India," or "filial piety in China" (qtd. in Yaeger, Cartography of Identity 23), the veil'2
of the Muslim woman has become in Western feminist Writing a pre-narrated space, i.e.,
a metaphor for a backward and repressive Muslim East. If Africa is defined in Cixous's
maternal text as pre-culture, the implication is that the veiled Sycorax lives outside
history; i.e., outside the reahn of culture. In "Sorties," the veil functions as a metaphor
for historical marginalization: "Is this me, this no-body that is dressed up, wrapped in
veils, carefully kept distant, pushed to the side of History and change, nullified, kept our
of the way, on the edge of the stage, on the kitchen side, the bedside?" (The Newly Born
Woman 69). Thus, écriture féminine or the search for a feminine language replicates the
cultural patterns, which patronize and have power over the history of Muslim women.
Even though she proposes a feminine practice of writing that "will always surpass the
discourse that regulates [this Western] phallocentric system" ("The Laugh of the Medusa"

253) and "phallocentric speculation/specularization" (The Newly Born Woman 94),

107

Cixous's association, in the cultural context of Islam, of unveiling/visibility with freedom
and veiling/invisibility with oppression and silence are reproductions of the same
"phallologocentric" discourse she is criticizing.

In opposition with Cixous's earlier works, Les Réveries underscores a
transvaluation of the conventional discourse about Algeria in the tradition of French
Orientalism. Parodying the imperial metaphor of exploring and inhabiting the body of a
female exotic Algeria, Cixous puts herself in the masculinist position to "embrace" and
repossess (13) Algeria by holding on to the body of her servant Aicha (14), who appears
creamy, feminine, and maternal (14). Whereas she presents her German mother and
grandmother as upper class "masculine" women with "discrete virility" and small chest,
she presents their servant, Aicha as "the real woman," and her "veil" as a catalyst of her
"burning" (91) sensuality. Turning the stereotype into a grotesque caricature, Cixous
states that she wants to inhabit the body of the Algerian woman: she wants to be
passionate and adulterous "81 la mauresque" ("like a Moorish woman") (135), "she wants
everything, the fine veil on the face, the linen and silk haik, the harem pants, the hidden
legs; she wants Algeria." Cixous adds that her mother's honesty is an offence or an
absurdity in a country where the veil has become second nature to women--like "an
organ" or "a retina"--and for others the symbol of "hypocrisy" and deceit" (102). In this
passage, Cixous is responding not only to Fanon's patriarchal claim that the veil is a .
constitutive element of the Algerian woman's "corporal pattern" ("Unveiling Algeria"
59), but also to the Orientalist construction of the Oriental woman and man as

"duplicitous."

108

The most tramnatic event in Cixous's life in Algeria is perhaps the accident she
saw at the fair in La Place d'Armes in Oran, where a woman was cut to pieces after her
veil got caught in the slats of a carousel. As she describes the veil, Cixous states:
"L'Algériefrancaise sort de la scene" (145). However, in dismissing the veil as another
"histoire d 'Arabes," Cixous puts the discourse on the veil outside the French colonial
situation. In "Algeria Unveiled," Fanon explains how the veil became a sign of Algerian
Islamic identity only when the French decided to break the native resistance by
strategically unveiling the Algerian woman and imbuing her in the principles of French
civilization by sending her into French schools. Two questions come to the fore here:
Why does the veil occupy a preeminent place in Cixous' traumatic memories? And why
does she still carry inside herself the body of that unknown "veiled young woman" (146)?

In "Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self," Susan J. Brison
problematizes the issue of remaking the self for survivors of traumatic events:

A further obstacle confronting trauma survivors attempting to
reconstruct coherent narratives is the difficulty of regaining one's
voice, one's subjectivity, after one has been reduced to silence, to

the status of an object, or, worse, made into someone else's speech,
the medium of another's agency? (Bal, Acts of Memory 47)

Because memories are constructed through "socially constituted forms, narratives, and
relations,"13 I intend to read Cixous's memoirs associating the veil with trauma both as a
reproduction of the French narrative about the oppressed "Muslim woman" and as a
mental palirnpsest of the Algerian woman's participation in the anti-colonial struggle. In
this scene, the veil becomes a metaphor for Islam's amputation of female sexuality and
repression of women's voices. Indeed, the accident in question happens when the

unknown veiled woman--who stands metaphorically for all Muslim women--is embraced

109

by another unknown Arab man. As she jumps in flight, her veil gets caught in the slats:
"her body was driven in the veil, her body was seized like meat in a grinder, she couldn't
get out" (145). "Her screams could be heard flom the top of the Cathedral before her
body dropped on the floor cut in two around the middle." Just after witnessing this
terrible accident, Cixous felt a "horrible feeling of relief" (145), for despite her death, the
veiled woman was able to break the silence imposed on her by Islam and Arab culture.
The question that rises here is: What does it mean to read the veiled woman's howling/the
sound of death as "feminine" and "humane" (145)? My argument here is that even in
death, this Algerian veiled woman is made to unspeak, as her death screams are
interpreted according to the Western center (écriture feminine) equating visibility and
voice with female fleedom, and veiling and silence with female amputation and
oppression. Also, how can this "veiled woman" speak when her death is reappropriated
and reconstituted as a metaphor for "the tragedy of a town, a country, a history"? (146).

In presenting this veiled woman as a victim, Cixous is reading this accident along
the lines of the Western narrative of the Muslim woman's victimization. In presenting
this Muslim woman as a passive and silent victim, Cixous is erasing the history of female
resistance in the anti-colonial struggle. My argument here is that Cixous's recontruction
of this traumatic event along the narrative of the "Muslim woman's victimization" is
shaped by the 1990s Civil War in Algeria where women have become the targets of
Islamic Fundamentalism. By projecting the present into the past, and ignoring the
strategic deployment of the hai‘k ("veil") in the Algerian Revolution, Cixous is denying

the semiotic mutability of the veil.

110

The discourse on the veil in Les Réveries is, however, ambivalent. When
Cixous's mother used to go to the police commissioner as a midwife to solve "les
histoires Arabes [de culotte],"14 she would wear the veil, for she never knew whether
these incidents would turn into tragedies or comedies (97-8). Thus, the veil is no longer a
symbol of female oppression and amputation, but also as a symbol of female fleedom, as
the veiled woman can travel incognito and see without being seen. It follows that the
invisible is no longer synonymous with darkness and oppression, but tied with the notion
of some liberty under the veil. When the FLN attacks against Jews started during the
Algerian war, Cixous's mother advised her to wear the veil and travel to Morocco if she
were chased by the police" (104). Rather than dismissing the veil as a universal symbol
of women's oppression like Irigaray, Cixous shows that under certain constraints placed
on women's movements, the veil can function as the condition for moving into the male
realm.

Also, Cixous's political comrrritrnent or what she calls her "literary identity"
allows her to reach out for all Muslim women regardless of their social class. Cutting
across social borders, she reveals how much she longed to visit her servant's house (92).
Exposing the social disparities between Algeria's Jews and Arabs, she remembers how
her mother never knew that the real names of her domestic workers were Messaouda and
Barta (93). Instead she used to call them Aicha and Fatrna, two colonial names given
indiscriminately to all Algerian women. This shows to what extent Algeria's Jews got
separated/cut flom the Arab population and to what extent they internalized the French

colonial discourse.

lll

Pointing to the separation of Arabs and Jews in her childhood, Cixous notes how
the French colonial situation and social inequities divided the Arab and Jewish population
of Algeria. As she revisits the past, Cixous tries to give names to the people she loved
yet called les Arabes ("the Arabs") (35), petizarabes ("Arab children") (45),
"mauresques" ("Moorish women") (59), or lézarabes (72).15 She remembers Muhammad
the doorman, Aicha their servant, Barta the domestic worker at the Clinic, and Kheira the
cook. Even though she never knew their homes" (152), she still remembers the names of
her few Muslim classmates Zohra Drif, Samia and Leila (151). She was never allowed to
visit their home, because the Algerian Jews "were filtered and rejected as 'French'" (58).
She even recuperates her Algerian Arabic-French dialect: "Yadibonfromage,
yadlavachkiri, yadizoeufs, yadinestlé" (114).l6

Unlike her earlier works, Cixous's Les Réveries reflects the recent feminist debate
about the veil in the West. Rather than being a sign of the Muslim woman's oppression,
Western feminists and Muslim feminists living in the West have recently been arguing
that the veil gives Muslim women access to certain fleedoms they would be otherwise
denied in the segregated societies of certain Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia. As
Ahmed puts it:

The strict segregation of Islamic societies has meant in fact
fleedoms for women and fleedoms to engage in activities that their
Western sisters engaged in literally at the peril of their lives. For
in segregated societies, all or almost all activities performed in the
world of men for men and by men must also be performed in the
world of women for women by women. The woman saint, the
woman sooth-sayer, the witch, the seances held for women by
women to exorcise or empower are a common and accepted part of

the Middle Eastern folk life. ("Western Ethnocentrism and
Perceptions of the Harem" 527-28).

112

Because these Western discourses on the veil and the Muslim women focus on
what is concealed, they fail to understand the significance of the veil in its specific local
context. In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler warns against the "urriversalization" (35) of
the notion of patriarchy, for it erases and elides the "distinct articulations of gender
asymmetry in different cultural contexts" (35). In a 1998 interview, Butler challenges the
notion in Eurocentric feminism, that the "veiled body" when "she/it enters public space,
counts as an example of the abject" (Irene Costera Meijer and Baukje Prins, "How Bodies
Come to Matter" 281). In some Islamic countries like Iran, women have access to some
form of power "faciliated by the veil, precisely because that power is deflected and made
less easily indentifiable" (281-82). Similarly, in "The Veil in their Minds and on Our
Heads," Homa Hoodfar argues against the naive association of de-veiling with female
emancipation. When the Shah's father passed a law in 1936 to modernize Iran, "without
any legal and socioeconomic adjustments" (259), those women who refused to take off
the veil because of their religious beliefs, became dependent on their male relatives.
Before the law, the veil allowed women to perform "public tasks" and to negotiate their
wages as they sold their carpets directly to the customers. With the new law, some of
them stopped "going to the carpet weaving workshops," and became increasingly

dependent on "their male relatives" and carpet traders to sell their goods (261).

d) In Remembrance of Algeria Past: Héle‘ne Cixous and the Search for Arabitude

In "Difference," Thomas's analysis ignores how Cixous's flequent discourse on
the "dark continent" and the "Aflican woman" serves to embrace and reclaim a
denigrated Oriental J ewish/Arab identity. In 1963, the diatribe "in vogue" among the

Ashkenazi Jews of Marseilles was the "Jew of Tizi Ouzou" (Ayoun 222). In "Sephardim

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in Israel: Zionism flom the Standpoint of its Jewish Victims," Ella Shohat explains how
the Arab Jew/Sephardi/Mizrahi voice was muffled and silenced by the discourse of
European Zionism (McClintock, Dangerous Liaisons 30). In "the Zionist master
narrative, European Zionism 'saved' Sephardi Jews flom the harsh rule of their Arab
'captors,' and 'rushed' them into modernity... democracy... and humane values" (40).
Sephardiml7 were often referred to as schwartze chaies ("black animals") (43) in
European Jewish circles. Even Ben Gurion referred to the Moroccan Jews as "savages"
(42). In the 1970s, finding inspiration in the revolt of Black America, the children of
Arab Jewish immigrants formed the Black Panthers, a radical Arab Jewish organization
in Israel (63). The amputated veiled Muslim woman Cixous still "carries inside her"
functions as a symbol for an Arab identity flom which she has been "cut off" or
"separated" (146).
In "Sorties," Cixous claims a la Césaire that "we are black and we are beautiful"

(69). Claiming a non-originary Jewish identity, she observes:

I was born in Algeria, and my ancestors lived in Spain, Morocco,

Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany; my brothers by birth

are Arab. So where are we in history? I side with those who are

injured, trespassed upon, colonized. I am (not) Arab. Who am I?

I am "doing" French history. I am a Jewish woman [...] Who is

this "I"? Where is my place? [...] Which language is mine?
French? German? Arabic? (71)

In putting in parentheses her denial of her Arab identity, she is putting under erasure her
own statement that she is Jewish, not Arab. In Les Réveries, Cixous states that her father,
besides being J ewish," is "a real Arab under the false appearances of a young and

handsome French doctor" (46). She also makes the claim that her sickness/thirst for

114

Algeria--la désalgérie--is also a sickness for l'arabité and l'arabitude (Arabness and
Arabitude) (5 7).

In Héle‘ne Cixous, Cixous draws only her Ashkenazi family tree. The missing
Sephardic branch of her family tree stands for what de Lauretis calls the "space-off"
representation, which, even though outside representation, does "still exist concurrently
and alongside the represented space" (26). In Cixous's own words, "the omissions as
well the acts of forgetting" (206) in her autobiographical narrative are still a constitutive
part of her écriture feminine. In contrast with the Eurocentric image of woman as the
dark continent in "The laugh of the Medusa," in Les Réveries, Cixous not only breaks the
silence over her Sephardic roots, but also overturns the racist values on which her earlier
metaphors were based. As a cartography of remembrance and forgetting, Cixous's
Algeria, with its exotic veils, its "dark continent," the "Abyss of the Savage Woman"18
rather than being a "themed" or "prenarrated space" (Y aeger 17) as in "Sorties" and "The
Laugh of the Medusa," becomes instrumental in retrieving Cixous's Arab/Jewish/African
identity.

As a childhood narrative, Les Réveries constitutes an act of "cultural memory" to
resurrect a Jewish Algeria and to understand and destigrnatize her Oriental roots.
According to Mieke Bal, cultural memory is a social and individual memory which links
"the past to the present and future" (Acts of Memory vii). All acts of remembering
involve the reenactment of "traumatic events" (viii). The act of memory, is "potentially
healing"(x), as it "calls for political and cultural solidarity." However, the subject of a
traumatic event can heal only if he/she interacts with the others. In Les Réveries, she

explains that she is writing her childhood memories to quench her désalgérie (68), and to

115

"cure herself flom her "incurable" (41) love for Algeria, which uncured might lead to her
self-destruction (17).

Cixous's Les Réveries could be seen as a feminist attempt to open a dialogue with
Algerian intellectuals and feminists like Djebar who wrote about the current events in
Algeria in Vaste est la prison (1995) and Le Blane de l'Algérie (1996). Just as Shohat
tries to open a dialogue in Israel between Palestinians and Sephardirn and to show them
how they "have been played against each other" (66) by a Eurocentric Zionist ideology,
Cixous is also trying to show how Muslims and Jews in Algeria have been played against
each other by the French colonial establishment. In French colonial Algeria, anti-
Semitism was directed at all Jews regardless of their origin: "French Jews flom both
France and Algeria, Spain, Arabs, or Corsican" (43). When Vichy was in Oran, Cixous's
father lost his job as a Jewish doctor (62). Cixous's farmly suffered a double exclusion,
flom the Arab circles because they were French, and flom the French circles because
they were Jewish Arabs. "After the War," Cixous's family was "no longer admitted to the
Red Cross swimming pools" (64). As a child, Cixous could not visit her French friend
Francoise at home (121-22) because she was Jewish. Thus, Cixous's autobiography
could be located within the recent mobilization on the part of Jewish and Muslim
intellectuals on the left (notably, Edward W. Said and Noam Chomsky) to put an end to
the increasing violence against women in Algeria and Palestinians in Israel.

In this autobiography, the issue is not whether Cixous is creating an idealized
homogeneous past, "the question" is rather as Shohat puts it, "who is mobilizing what in
the articulation of the past, deploying what identities, identifications, and representations,

and in the name of what political vision and goals?" ("Notes on the Post Colonial," The

116

Preoccupation of Postcolonial Studies 136). Cixous's identification with Muslim women
and writing about Algeria after 45 years of silence is prompted by her "literary identity,"
that is to say, by her political engagement as a feminist facing the FIS's increasing
violence against women in the 1990s Algeria. Cixous states that she thought about
writing this book since 1994 (Les Réveries 167), that is to say, two years after the break
out of the civil war in Algeria. Given the fact that as a Jew, Cixous is no longer an
Algerian citizen, her "literary nationality" (Héle‘ne Cixous 207) does not simply give her
the license to write about the current events in Algeria, but more importantly, it becomes
a form of self-reterritorialization beyond the boundaries of nation. This imaginary
"international" (Les Réveries 107) identity becomes not only a passport for border
crossing, for speaking and writing about Algeria and the Algerian women, but also for

claiming a non-originary Jewish identity.

 

' This scopophilic drive in Western metaphysics can be traced back to the symposium between Socrates
and Glaucon in Plato's Republic. In Book 7, there is a "screen" or a "wall" (220), separating the prisoners
flom the light of a fire burning outside the cave. The prisoners know neither themselves nor one another,
the only thing they can see are "the shadows cast by the fire on the wall of the cave" (20). Just as the act of
concealing/veiling in the story of the cave is synonymous with obstruction and darkness, the act of
seeing/unveiling is conversely associated with "the truth of what is beautiful and just and good" (226).
Even though he has retained this phallocentrism, Friedrich Nietzsche departs in The Gay Sciences flom
Western metaphysics by undermining the idea of any truth lying behind the veil. Dissociating himself flom
the Orient of "the Egyptian youths," who, looking for truth, "endanger temples," "embrace statues, and
want by all means to unveil [...] whatever is kept concealed for good reasons" (38), Nietzsche allies
himself with the Greeks, who "are superficial out of profundity," and who know when "to stop
courageously at the surface, the fold, [and] the skin." After stripping the courageous Greeks of their
previously constructed cultural ties with the Orient and reinventing them as part of Western tradition,
Nietzsche goes on to recreate the veil as a symbol of the "deception" of women who often conceal the fact
that there is nothing behind the veil, i.e., that their "essence is [merely] to appear" (qtd. in Mary Anne
Doane, "Veiling over Desire: Close Ups of the Woman" 121). In Nietzsche's text, the veil becomes the
symbol of an Oriental/Egyptian otherness that is effeminate and duplicitous.

2 "Le Voile," Le Grand Robert de la langue Francaise, 1987 ed.
3 In Woman and Gender in Islam, Ahmed argues that the practice of seclusion and veiling in Medieval
Islam was borrowed flom the neighboring Christian, Judaic, and Persian societies, and that the nineteenth

century European imperialist discourse invented Islamic civilization as separate flom the Judeo-Christian
and Greek civilizations of the Middle East (33).

117

 

‘ In Fantasia, Djebar revisits F anon's patriarchal metaphor by telling the stories of women who were really
raped during the process of French colonization

5 I make allusion here to the title of a travelogue by John Foster Fraser, The Land of Veiled Women: Some
Wanderings in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco (London: Cassell and Company, LTD, 1913).

6 Lacan's presentation of metaphor as open and masculine and metonymy as latent and feminine made
many critics like Luce Irigaray accuse him of phallocentrism. See This Sex Which is Not One, trans.
Catherine Porter (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985) 108.

7 I am using Reina Lewis's words in her analysis of Lacan's Oriental metaphor in Gendering Orientalism:
Race, F emininity and Representation (London: Routledge, 1996) 181.

8 By "hyperveiling," MacMaster and Lewis refer to the French media's obsession with images of Muslim
women wearing the tchador. See "Orientalism: flom Unveiling to Hyperveiling," European Studies 82
(1998): 121-35.

9 The same anxiety has struck the US. after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In the first days following the
bombing of the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, the giant U.S. networks flequently deployed the veil
as the symbol of Oriental or Islamic barbarity. If many veiled Muslim women became the target of
retaliatory violence in the aftermath of the attacks, it was partly because the veil had been displayed all over
the American mass media as a sign of Islamic/Arab hatred, duplicity, and barbarity. One day after the
attacks, CNN, MSNBC, and FOX 47 broadcast a footage showing Palestinian children and a veiled Muslim
woman celebrating the loss of thousands of American lives. According to the Independent Media Center,
this footage was shot in 1991 during the invasion of Kuwait. Even though CNN denied the manipulation
charge, it never showed this footage again. Whether or not these images were fabricated, the fact remains
the same: the horrible pictures of this Palestinian woman dressed in black, eating cakes, and ululating over
the death of American nationals were instrumental in kindling people's fear and in turning the veil into a
sign of an irrational and demonic otherness. When the US. engaged its troops in Afghanistan, the
threatening image of the Muslim woman ("veiled phallus") receded to the background to pave the way for
the images of the helpless Afghan "Muslim woman" unable to breathe and see flom beneath her burqa.

'0 This is my translation.

” In Djamila Boupacha, de Beauvoir and Halimi denounce this Algerian woman's torture and the sham
trial of her torturers by the French Judicial authorities in Algeria.

'2 This does not mean that the meaning of the veil is fixed in the West. In weddings and mourning, the veil
does not have an Arabic or Muslim connotation.

'3 From Jonathan Crewe, "Recalling Adamastor: Literature as Cultural Memory in 'White' South Aflica,"
eds., Mieke Bal, Jonathan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer, Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present
(Hanover: Dartmouth College, 1999) 75.

'4 She is condescendingly referring to the old wedding night sheet custom in North Aflica. If the
bridegroom has doubts about his wife's virginity, a midwife is called upon to check the bride's hymen. In
such cases, the police intervenes to either protect the bride or to prevent fights between the two families.

'5 There is a pun/racial slur here: Lézarabes means not only Arabs but also Iézard ("lizard").

'6 "Du bonfromage" ("good cheese"), "La vache qui rit," (cheese), "les oeufs" ("eggs"), and "Nestlé."

'7 Whereas Moroccan Jews used to hide Moroccan Jewish customs and holidays, now they are openly

practicing their North Aflican traditions. The election of Netanyahu to the position of Prime Minister
shows that the Sephardim are no longer disempowered.

118

 

‘8 The Abyss is the name of the poor neighborhood where thousands of "wretched" Arabs lived, separated
flom the Clos-Salembier, a middle and upper class Pieds Noirs suburb, where Cixous's family lived (40).

119

Chapter Four: Body, Home, and Nation: The Production of the Tunisian Muslim
Woman in the Reformist Thought of Tahar al Haddad and Habib Bourguiba

The Tunisian women's movement is original! It is not a
feminist movement. It has no demands: it has been granted
everything (L 'Action 7 January 1957)l

Whereas the previous three chapters focused on the invention of the "Muslim
woman" in female Orientalism, French psychoanalysis and feminism, and Islamic
feminism, this fourth chapter examines the ideological production of the "Muslim
woman" in the nationalist narratives of Tahar a1 Haddad (1899-1935) and Habib
Bourguiba (1903-2000). Taking into consideration the debate over authenticity and
modernity in colonial and postcolonial Tunisia, this chapter tries to reconceptualize the
relations between gender, nation, home in al Haddad's social treatise Our Woman in the
Shari 'a Law and Society2 (Imra'atuna fi al shari'a wa al mujtama’) (1930) and
Bourguiba's policy and public speeches on the veil and women's rights. These texts will
be studied in conjunction with some cartoons and articles published by the Tunisian
nationalist press in the colonial era and the official government press in postcolonial
Tunisia. This chapter starts by introducing al Haddad and Bourguiba in view of the
debate over women's emancipation in nineteenth and early twentieth century Tunisia.
The major objective of this first section is to demonstrate a1 Haddad's and Bourguiba's
indebtedness and resistance to these early discourses on the "Muslim woman."

In Nation and Narration (1990), Bhabha presents nationalism as an ambivalent
discourse and a flactured system of cultural production. Relying on Bhabha's notion that
the nationalist subject is split3 at the site of enunciation, this second section examines the

ambivalence within a1 Haddad's and Bourguiba's nationalist reconstruction of the

120

"Muslim woman." Despite their revolutionary ideas, a1 Haddad and Bourguiba often tend
to reinforce Tunisian women's roles as wives, mothers and guardians of Islamic tradition,
as assigned to them within a patriarchal system.

According to Bhabha, the nation is a "modern J anus" figure "wavering between
two vocabularies" and vacillating between the imperatives of authenticity and the social
reality of "modernity" (2). Taking up Bhabha's notion that all nationalist discourses are
ambivalent, this third section tries to examine the woman's position in the flactured
discourse of nationalism, an issue hardly broached in Nation and Narration. Using the
texts of al Haddad and Bourguiba, this section will examine how the Tunisian "Muslim
woman"--as the "atavistic and authentic body of national tradition"--came to represent
Tunisian nationalism's "conservative principle of continuity," while the "Tunisian man"--
as the "progressive agent of national modernity"--came to embody "nationalism's
progressive, or revolutionary, principle of discontinuity" (McClintock, "'No Longer in a
Future Heaven': Gender, Race and Nationalism," Dangerous Liaisons 92) (1997). This
section will focus on three key points: 1) the Muslim woman's" construction as the body
of the "ammo"; 2) the male gendering of nationalist agency; 3) and finally the gender
politics implicated in Bourguiba's concept of the "Tunisian personality."

The fourth argument of this chapter is that despite some continuity in their
conception of masculinity and femininity, the nationalist ideologies of a1 Haddad and
Bourguiba have produced two different forms of domesticity. Whereas in al Haddad's
writings the Muslim woman is the domestic subject of the Islamic umma, under the
paternalistic authority of Bourguiba, the "Muslim woman"--including feminist

organizations like the U.N.F.T. (Union Nationale des Femmes T unisiennes)--occupies a

121

double position as a subnational subject of the Shari 'a law and a citizen of the modern
state.

Subsequently, this chapter will examine the power politics prevalent in colonial
and postcolonial Tunisia. This part argues that it is the privileges of gender, education
and in Bourguiba's case class4 which allow these two nationalist figures to speak on
behalf of the "Tunisian woman" and to claim for her a traditional past and a modern
future. This part will also focus on the recent laws affecting the lives of Tunisian women
in the 1990s. Even though patriarchal and essentialist in nature, these laws had a positive
impact on the lives of Tunisian women and granted them rights unequaled in the Arab

and Islamic world.

I) A] Haddad and Bourguiba and the Debate over the Woman Question in
Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Tunisia

Al Haddad was born in Tunis in 1899 and grew up in a very modest family that
came originally flom the Tunisian South (Al Hamma). His father used to sell poultry at
the Marché Central of Tunis. In contrast with Bourguiba who received a French colonial
education, a1 Haddad attended a Qur'anic school where he learned only Arabic. He then
attended the theological school of the Zaytuna Mosque5 flom 1911 till 1920 where he
earned the T ath' Diploma that allowed him to work as a notary. Al Haddad also
attended the Khaldounia (literary club) conferences and enrolled in law school (Hedi
Balegh, Les Pensées de Tahar Haddad 13). He quickly became involved in the Tunisian
nationalist movement. He joined the Old Destur Party at its inception in 1920, but

disenchanted with its methods, he soon left it to found, in 1924, with Muhammad Ali al

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Hammi, the first union of the Tunisian workers, La Confederation Générale Tunisienne
du Travail (Balegh 13). In 1927, al Haddad wrote his first book, The Tunisian Workers
and the Trade Unionist Movement in Tunisia, followed in 1930 by his controversial book
Our Woman in the Shari 'a Law and Society. Because of his call for women's
emancipation, the Sheiks of the Zaytuna accused a1 Haddad of heresy and issued a fatwa
whereby they revoked his Zaytuna degree, his notary license, and barred him flom an
exam room (Balegh 7). Isolated and living in poverty, he died of a heart attack on 7
December 1935 at the age of thirty-six.

Although not flom the old Tunisian nobility, Bourguiba belonged to the new
rising bourgeoisie. He was born in 1903 in the small town of Monastir. Despite
Bourguiba's claim that he lived his childhood in utter poverty, the annals of the Tunisian
Ministry of Information show that he came from an upper middle class background
(Norma Salem, Habib Bourguiba, Islam and the Creation of Tunisia 31). His father was
an officer in the Bey's army, owned a house, 123 olive trees and was able to send his five
sons to school. Bourguiba pursued his high school education at the College Sadiki,
where he obtained the Brevet Certificate in Arabic, and at the Lycée Carnot where he
earned his Baccalaureate degree in 1924. He then went to the Sorbonne to study law. In
1927, he graduated with a dual degree in law and political science. In the same year, he
married a French woman Mathilde Louvain. As soon as he returned to Tunisia, he
worked as a lawyer and joined the Old Destur Party (1927-34). He wrote articles in
many nationalist newspapers such as La Voix du T unisien and L’Etendard T unisien. On 1
November 1932, he started running a new nationalist newspaper L'Action T unisienne.

After splitting flom the Old Destur Party in the aftermath of the Ksar Hlal Congress (2

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March 1934), he served as the General Secretary of the Neo Destur Party. In the middle
of the 1930s, under the colonial repression of the Resident General Marcel Peyroutan, he
was forced into exile, first to Kébili and then to Borj Leboeuf. He was then permitted to
return, but after the bloody incidents of 9 April 1938,6 he was arrested and sent to a
prison in France. After W.W.II., he established contacts with the United Nations and the
Arab League to campaign for Tunisia's independence. Collaborating in the early fifties
with the French left government of Pierre Mendés France, he was able to obtain Tunisia's
internal independence on 3 June 1955 and full independence on 20 March 1956. He
remained President till 7 November 1987 and passed away on 6 April 2000.

As in Egypt, the debate over the Muslim woman's emancipation in Tunisia was
initiated by the European colonial encounter. Having lived in the same colonial era,
Bourguiba and a1 Haddad were heirs to the modernist and nationalist currents prevalent in
Tunisia, the West, and the Middle East in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Both of them were familiar with the works of Muslim and secular reformers in the
Middle East like Muhammad Abdu, Jamel Addine al Afghani, Qassim Arrrin, and Kemal
Ataturk. Even though al Haddad neither read nor spoke French like Bourguiba, he was
exposed to the discourse of modernity and Western thought through translation and
contact with the Tunisian literary and political circles such as la Khaldounia (literary
club), the Association of the Former Students of the Sadiki College, and Jama'at T ahta
Assour, a literary circle which included nationalist intellectuals like Abu Kacern Chebbi,
Ali Dou'agi, Mustapha Khraif, and Zaine Abidine Snoussi (Zeineb Ben Said Cherni, Les
Dérapages de l'histoire chez T ahar Haddad 40). He was also influenced by the

modernist ideas of Abdel Aziz al Th'aalbi, the leader of the Old Destur Party and by the

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Socialist ideas of Said Aboubaker, Hédi La'bidi, Muhammad Noomane, Eve Nohelle,
Anne el Dey and Jules Brunet, who wrote many articles in the 19203 against the veil and
polygamy in Tunis Socialiste. Bourguiba's dual Arabic and French education and his
involvement with the nationalist press exposed him to the same modernist currents which
influenced the reformist thought of al Haddad.

Started by liberal statesmen in the nineteenth-century, the reformist movement in
Tunisia came under the aegis of the nationalist leadership in the twentieth century;
namely the Desturian nationalists (a1 Th'aalbi) and the Tunisian socialists (Muhammad
Noomane and Eve Noelle). In the middle of the nineteenth century, Leon Roches, the
French consul in Tunisia between 1853-1863, critiqued in his communication with the
Tunisian political reformer Ahmed Ibn Abi Dhiaf the condition of the "Muslim woman"
in Tunisia. Even though he refuted the colonial premise that Islam is behind the Muslim
woman's backward condition, Ibn Abi Dhiaf still believed in men's superiority over
women because of man's exclusive powers of "rationality," "prophecy" and "jihad" (Al
Mar'a fi al haraka al islahiya min al T ahar al Haddad ila Zine al Abidine Ben Ali 17).
Well-krrown for his political reforms, Ibn Abi Dhiaf's views on the "Muslim woman"
were startlingly conservative. A father, he wrote, could arrange the marriage of his minor
daughter without her consent; "because he [knew] what [was] best for her" (qtd. in Al
Mar'a 17). In his opinion, the wife could not ask for divorce since she became the
husband's "property" the day "he paid for her dowry" (qtd. in Al Mar'a 18). Condoning
polygamy, he stated that besides fitting the strong sexual drive of Arab men, polygamy
was a natural "phenomenon" like having "four members, the four seasons, the four

heavenly books, the four fundamental bases of the world--administration, commerce,

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agriculture, and industry--and the number of elite women-—Hagar, Mariam, Khadija, and
Fatrna (qtd. in Al Mar'a 19). Disapproving of women's education and sufur ("unveiling"),
he wrote that besides encouraging women to mix with men, "a woman's education" and
introduction to "the sciences" made her mannish, which was something makrouh
("frowned upon") among Muslims (qtd. in Al Mar'a 20). Ibn Abi Dhiafs conservatism,
however, was not shared by many of his contemporaries. In 1867, the Tunisian reformist
and Secretary of the Bey Ahmed Kheireddine called for women's education to make them
good spouses capable of running their households and raising their children (qtd. in
Hafidha Chekir, Le Statut des femmes entre les textes et les résistances: Le cas de la
T unisie l 1).

In 1917, the man of letters Hassen Hosni Abdelwahab wrote in his book Most
Famous Tunisian Women (Shahirat Attunisiyat): "We today urgently need educated
Muslim young women who will take charge of our future" and "awaken the nationalist
spirit." Without this "solid national education," he wamed, "the remedy would be
transformed into aihnent, life would turn to nihilism and the consequences would be
disastrous. May God protect us!" (qtd. in Chemi 140). The call for women's education
was also endorsed by the Old Destur leader and Zaytuna Sheikh Abdel Aziz a1 Th'aalbi
(1874-1944). He too linked the Muslim woman's role as educator with the development
of her country. "Woman," he wrote, "has to take her share flom life and sunlight at the
same level as man. Only then, will the Islamic world witness any change" (qtd. in Al
Mar'a 28). In his book The Liberal Spirit of the Qur’an (1905), Al Th'aalbi stated that the
verses about the veil were about Muhammad's wives, not ordinary Muslim women (Al

Mar'a 27). In the same book, a1 Th'aalbi denounced the oppressive "weight of traditions

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and customs," and argued that "neither gender inequality" nor "veiling" originated in
Islam (Chekir 12).

An overview of a1 Haddad's and Bourguiba's reformist thought reveals both
conformity and resistance towards these earlier discourses on the Muslim woman. Their
call for the Tunisian woman's education and participation in the building of a modern
Tunisia reproduces the earlier discourses of Amin, a1 Th'aalbi, and Hosni Abdelwahab on
women's roles in the project of national regeneration. Of all the above Tunisian and Arab
reformers, it is al Th'aalbi who seems to have the strongest impact on the reformist and
feminist thought of al Haddad and Bourguiba.7 Echoing a1 Th'aalbi's anti-nativist views
in The Liberal Spirit of the Qur'an, al Haddad claims that Islam has been adulterated not
with Western values, as the Algerian Muslim reformist Sheikh Abd el Hamid Ibn Badis
claimed, but with local Tunisian customs and traditions. In Our Woman, a1 Haddad
claims that there is a discrepancy between woman in the Shari 'a law and society.
Whereas in the first part of his book, al Haddad examines women's rights and status in
the Qur'an, in the second, he focuses on the "Muslim woman's" condition in Tunisia of
the 19203. At the end of this second section he concludes that women's oppression is
caused not by Islam but by Muslims. Like a1 Th'aalbi, he claims that "the seclusion we
impose on the woman as one of the edicts of Islam, and which takes the form of either
her house imprisonment, or the wearing of the veil, is not an easy question to confirm in
Islam" (Our Woman 34).

Reproducing a1 Th'aalbi's argument, a1 Haddad argues that the hijab was imposed
only on the Prophet's wives not on all Muslim women (24). In contrast with Fanon's

construction of the veil as a neutral or innocent signifier in pre-colonial Algerian society,

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the veil for al Haddad points to women's exclusion flom social and economic life. Rather
than being a symbol of Islamic identity, the hijab for al Haddad is deployed by men to
"rob" women flom their wealth by forcing them to "rely on the tutelage of men" (184-
85).

Against the Maliki Sheikh Abdelaziz Djait and Ibn Abi Dhiaf, a1 Haddad argues
that the veil encourages, male, not female, depravity: "The hijab gave men a private life
outside the home that women are not aware of. [Men] spend whatever amount of money
they lay their hands on, on prostitution, drunkenness, gambling and everything that would
give them fun and entertainment in this separate life flom which the wives are excluded."
(184). He concludes that putting the veil on a woman's face to prevent immorality is like
putting "a muzzle on a dog's mouth so that it does not bite those who pass by" (182).

As a unionist, a1 Haddad argues that "immorality" is caused not by "unveiling" as
the proponents of the veil argue, but by "poverty, which beset us flom everywhere"
(190). Separating the veil flom morality and religion, he discusses it in terms of national
and economic survival. While Tunisians are still debating "the positive and negative
consequences of unveiling," European clothes are "drowning our kingdom" and "putting
an end to [our] traditional textile, wool, silk, fouta ("a traditional female garment"), and
scarf industries" (188-89). Thus holding "woman" responsible for society's corruption is
a surface reading of the real causes which are unemployment, inadequacy of the
traditional economic inflastructure to respond to the needs of the family and society in
general (190).

In 1897, Muhammad Snoussi (1851-1900) published "Breaking the Chains Over

Women's Rights in Islam," a letter in which he urges the "husband to feed and clothe his

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wife, and to provide her with servants" (Al Mar'a 26-7) to spare her the burden of doing
housework and breastfeeding her children. The same idea is reproduced by a1 Haddad
when he writes in 1930 that "raising children is not an obligation [for the Muslim
woman], but one of her rights, which she could give up according to Imam Shafi'i and
Abu Hanifa. It is the husband's duty to find someone to take care of them unless the wife
has to do so" (48).

Reflecting the early twentieth century European patriarchal discourse about the
science of rearing children, a1 Haddad writes: "We need the European woman's
knowledge and capacity to bear and raise children, capable of not only engaging in the
battle of life, but also of winning the battle, and benefiting flom the world resources and
peoples" (214). Thus the success of European imperialism according to al Haddad was
possible only because of the education and emancipation of the European mother. Just as
the French mother is able to create a successful imperial male subject, so should the
Tunisian mother and future mothers of the nation; they must create successful nationalist
male children. What is important here is not al Haddad's construction of the Tunisian and
French woman alike as "creator/lactator,"8 but his appropriation of the right-wing French
imperial construction of womanhood as the basis for a Tunisian nationalist/imperialist
project.

Likewise Bourguiba's defense9 of the veil as a component of the "Tunisian
personality" in 1929--one year before a1 Haddad published his book--reflects the
nationalist debate in French colonial Tunisia. For Youssef e1 Mahjoub, a Tunisian
nationalist and student of law and philosophy, "the hijab is our individuality and its

distinctive sign." To abolish it means to "change our morality and erode our personality"

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(qtd. in Muhammad Noomane, "A L'Essor" 1). Following the debate on the veil at
L'Essor,10 there was a long polemic in 1929 between the anti-veil campaign of
Muhammad Noomane11 and Joachim Durel12 in Tunis Socialiste and Bourguiba's pro-veil
campaign in L'Etendard T unisien. Although he was "educated in French school" and
"expressed himself in an elegant French style" (Durel, "Réponses a quelques jeunes" 1),
the young Bourguiba asserted in a speech he gave at L'Essor that the veil is an important
component of the "Tunisian personality" ("Le Voile" 2). In 1929, Noomane attacked
Bourguiba for defending the veil while being married to an unveiled French woman.
"Bourguiba's daughters," Noomane sarcastically observed, "are French citizens and enjoy
all the political and social prerogatives of French women including the individual
fleedom and the right to throw away the "'hijab' to the devil" (qtd. in "La Polémique
Bourguiba-Noomane," L 'Action 1 7).

Even though he attacks in principle le feminisme vestimentaire ("Le Voile" 1), in
his fight against the French politics of assimilation, Bourguiba calls Tunisians to "hold on
to all the manifestations of the Tunisian personality," even on the "level of clothing" (qtd.
in "La Polémique Bourguiba-Noomane" 13). "Veiling," he says is "a custom that has
entered into our ethics centuries ago. It is now part of who we are ("Le Voile" 2). In
contrast with Durel's claim that there is no "Tunisian individuality," Bourguiba asserts
that Islam, the veil and territorial unity are quintessential elements of the Tunisian
identity:

Tenitorial unity, the Community of Believers, the unity of
language, custom, past, the joys felt together, the reversal of
fortunes and humiliations experienced in the same way, all of these
things do not help create, for Mr. Durel, any tie, any feeling of

solidarity, or any patriotic idea among the children of this country.
("Le Voile" 1)

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Like a1 Haddad, Bourguiba links the issue the veil and the chechia (traditional
male turban) to the issue of economic imperialism. Even though Bourguiba used to wear
Western clothes, he accuses Durel of promoting French clothing and therefore of being
complicit with the French imperial project of assimilation: "Whereas [Durel] is supposed
to represent the interests of the Tunisian workers, he calls for the abolition of the chechia,
a major trade item in Tunisia, in favor of the French products" (Bourguiba, "Le
Durrellisme ou le Socialisme boiteux," L'Etendard T unisien 1). Bourguiba's discussion
of male clothes in economic rather than cultural terms and his silence over his own
consumption of Western products indicate how nationalism invents different roles for
men and women: only the "Tunisian woman" is bound to be the visible marker of the
Tunisian personality; the Tunisian man, is the protector, not the marker, of cultural
identity.

In "Algeria Unveiled," F anon writes: "It is by their apparel that types of society
first become known" (35). Much earlier than Fanon, el Mahjoub and Bourguiba
presented nationalism as a politics of visibility. For these two male Tunisian nationalists,
the "Muslim woman" functions as the "visible marker of national homogeneity." This
explains her subjection to "vigilant and violent discipline" as well as "the intense emotive
politics of dress" (McClintock, "'No Longer in a Future Heaven'" 97) in Maghrebian

nationalism.

II) Ambivalence in al Haddad's and Bourguiba's Construction of the "Muslim

Woman"

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In contrast with Ibn Abi Dhiaf's conservative views on marriage and divorce and
Abdel Aziz Djait's sanction of the triple13 divorce formula (94), a1 Haddad claims that the
"Muslim woman" is not a "man's property" or "slave" even if he paid for her dowry
(113). He calls for the establishment of divorce courts (67), the "Muslim woman's" rights
to "equal inheritance" (28), to initiate divorce procedure (65), to choose a husband (46),
and "to administer her wealth" (20). Perhaps, the most feminist statement in al Haddad's
book is his outcry that the Muslim woman is not "a vessel for our penises" (9).

In his argument against polygamy, which he condemns as lust (151), a1 Haddad
does not hesitate to desacralize the persona of Muhammad. If the Prophet married more
than one woman, it was not to encourage polygamy, but because of special
circumstances" (57), [for] the Prophet is a human being who cannot be exempted flom
the influence of accidental facts which impact [ordinary] human beings; facts which are
not codified by God's Revelation" (57).

Al Haddad was greatly influenced by the "discursive theological framework of the
Hanafi school in which 'ijtihad' was based on arguments, justifications, rhetoric, and
approbation" (Cherrri 108). In Our Woman, a1 Haddad claims that the Qur'anic and
Shari 'a laws are not eternal, but bound to a historical context. He often investigates the
causes of tanzil ("the Sura's descent") and examines the different explanations a verse is
given by the fitqaha ("men of religious science") (23). Because the essence of the Islamic
faith is "justice" and "equality between people" (12), polygamy and gender inequality,
like slavery, are to be abolished gradually (33). During Muhammad's life, new laws and
texts came to cancel earlier texts and laws. Because of historical progress, divine law is

not eternal, it has to be compatible with modern times.

132

Even though he defended the veil in 1929 and remained silent over the fatwa
issued against a1 Haddad in the early 19303, Bourguiba did implement many of a1
Haddad's reforms when he enacted The Personal Status Code (PSC) on 13 August 1956.
After Tunisia's independence, Bourguiba launched [a la Ataturk] a campaign to abolish
the veil. In a post-independent speech delivered on 5 December 1957, the veil shifted
from being a sign of Tunisian personality to being "a horrible rag (torchon) [which] has
nothing to do with religion" ("Coordination des services, respect des individus et
liberation de la femme," Discours 4: 21). Reflecting Bourguiba's anti-veiling policy, the
government's official newspaper L’Action wrote that the veil was a Persian import.
Muslim women remained unveiled till the second year of the Hijra. Because the Qur'an
ordered only the Prophet's wives to wear the veil, the "Muslim woman" today must take
off the veil (Bahija M., "Le Coran impose-t-il 1e voile?" 18).

Recalling a1 Haddad's comparison between the issue of slavery and polygamy in
Islam and his argument that the Qur'anic and Shari 'a laws are subject to historical
change, Bourguiba writes in 1960 that polygamy has to disappear because it is
anachronistic: "No one can deny that the Qur'an has some dispositions regarding slaves:
rights, obligations, trade conditions. But a century ago, social circumstances led
everywhere to the abolition of slavery, which was initially legal." The Caliph Umar
himself revoked the sentence of cutting the thief's hand because it was "a year of famine"
("Zeme Congres National de L'U.N.F.T.," Discours 8: 53).

Like a1 Haddad who states that polygamy must be abolished because the essence
of the Islamic faith is justice (Our Woman 55), Bourguiba writes that the "general spirit

of the Qur'an is generally directed towards monogarny as indicated in the verse 'in case

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you fear being unfair, you must marry one woman'" ("Deux Fondements du Statut
Personnel: dignité et cohésion nationale," Discours 2: 129). And he adds, not without a
touch of sarcasm, that the supporters of polygamy must admit, "in the spirit of just equity,
that a woman [must become] polyandrous in the case the husband is sterile and that it
would be legitimate for her to marry many men to make sure she has progeny. "

Giving voice to al Haddad's outcry against the practice of aljabr ("compulsion to
marriage"), article 3 of the PSC banned marriage without consent. The PSC also forbade
unilateral divorce by according to both partners the right to divorce through the
interrnediacy of a judge. Heeding a1 Haddad's call for a "premarital medical screening"
to prevent the passing of "genetic diseases" and "alcoholism" onto the children and the
wife's entrapment with an "impotent husband" (146—47), Bourguiba implemented the pre-
nuptial medical exam in 1962 to prevent "diseases like tuberculosis and syphilis" flom
being passed to the children and wives ("Les Missions des femmes," Discours 10: 205).

Even though he did not change the Islamic laws of inheritance whereby the male
inherits twice the share of the female, Bourguiba dissolved the habusl4 system which a1
Haddad found inimical to the egalitarian spirit of Islam. In Our Woman, a1 Haddad
writes that the "custom of habus whereby the father restricts his wealth to his sons,"
whereby "the daughters are provided for as long as they are in their father's house or
returned to it," is a way "to break flee flom the Islamic law that gives women the right to
inherit and a return to the J ahilia practice where women could be inherited" (28-9).

The history of the Tunisian nationalist press and the examples provided by al
Haddad and Bourguiba undermine Leila Ahmed's homogeneous claim (Women and

Gender in Islam) that those who advocate women's emancipation in the language of

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unveiling and democracy are Westem-educated upper and middle class Arab modernists,
and those who call for the reform of women's condition in Islamist terms have all
received a traditional Arabic education and come flom a more modest social background.
As a matter of fact, except for Tunis Socialiste, the Tunisian nationalist press in French
like L'Etendard Tunisien and La Voix du T unisien were much more adamant in their
opposition to the French colonial government than the nationalist newspapers in Arabic
like Al Nahdha (The Renaissance) or Al Zahra (The Flower). Even though al Haddad
spoke only Arabic and attended the theological school of the Zaytuna, his ideas were
more daring and threatening to the Tunisian patriarchy than those of Bourguiba who
studied law at the Sorbonne. Besides calling for the abolition of the veil in 1930, he is
the only Tunisian or Muslim male reformer who called for gender equality in inheritance.
"In its essence," he writes, "Islam does not oppose the principle of equality in all its
respects" (32). Because the Shari ’a law is based on muruna ("leniency") and is
compatible with "the developments of human life," gender inequality in inheritance has
to disappear, following Islam's gradual prohibition of alcohol and slavery. Al Haddad
goes so far as to show the ambivalence in the Islamic laws of inheritance. It is well
known that the Qur'an gives "the male twice the share of the female" (28), but what is
less known, is that women are equal to men in the case of parental inheritance: "The
parents of the deceased son shall each receive 1/6 flom what he left if he had a son." And
the same thing for the siblings' inheritance: "If the deceased leaves behind children and a
wife and he has a brother or a sister, each of them shall receive 1/6 of what he left. If

they were more than two, they will share the 1/3 of what remains after a will or the

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payment of a debt" (28). What the Qur'an said about inheritance was compatible with the
Arabs' condition in early Islamic days, not today.

An overview of a1 Haddad's and Bourguiba's writings reveals a split in their
construction of the Muslim woman. For them, the Tunisian Muslim woman exists only
within the family, as a mother and a wife. To start with al Haddad, neither Zeineb Ben
Said Cherni, Hédi Balegh, Abou Kacem Muhammad Karrou, nor Ahmed Khaled point to
the ambivalence in al Haddad's discourse about women's emancipation. Despite his
criticism of violence against women, he still places the husband as the wife's teacher and
head of the family. Throughout al Haddad's writings, the purpose of a woman's
education is not self-fulfilhnent, but to be "a good spouse" and "helpmate" (Our Woman
160). Throughout al Haddad's writings, the Tunisian woman is confined to the
patriarchally assigned roles of mother and wife:

Woman is the mother of humanity, she carries [man] in her womb
and arms, and he is conscious of nothing, but of her influence
which will later appear in his life. She feeds him with her milk,
blood, and heart. She is also the domestic spouse who quenches
the hunger of his soul, dissipates his loneliness, and sacrifices her
health and peace of mind to provide him with his needs and
alleviate the weight of the obstacles he encounters. She
overwhehns him with her emotions to reduce the weight of the
catastrophes and sadness and rekindles in him the energy of living.
(Our Woman 5)

The new Tunisian woman must be given a tha'kafa manziliya ("domestic culture")
(121). To raise healthy nationalist subjects, she must learn hygiene, child nutrition, [and]
food conservation" (132). Thus, if the hijab is to be abolished, it is for the purpose of
making the Muslim woman a good housewife who is able to "run the household budget

and every day life" (158). To be a good mother, the "Muslim woman" must also be given

a tha'kafa 'a'kliya or "rational culture" (123). The Renaissance of Tunisia is impossible

136

as long as the Tunisian mother believes in "ghouls" and "the benefits of talismans" (123).
For al Haddad, "these superstitions" fill the empty heads of the youth and "leave no room
for rational and intellectual thinking." In despair, a1 Haddad exclaims: "If it is difficult to
"remove these poisons from the mind of the young boy [then] let's imagine how difficult
this would be for the young girl who has been barred flom any educational and social
environment" (124) How can she be a good mother after being inculcated these
"superstitions and customs"?

Al Haddad's views on the educated Tunisian woman are not flattering either. For
him these educated women flom the well-to-do classes have misunderstood the concept
of modernity and progress: "They are better than their illiterate sisters only in conceit and
the imperative to consume to excess the cosmetics [required] in their Western lifestyle,
without considering their husbands' budget or what lies in the interest of their marriage"
(196). Hence, if a1 Haddad attacks the educated Tunisian woman, it is because of her
possible challenge/escape flom her patriarchal duties as mother/wife. In Our Woman, the
Muslim woman's national contribution is confined to the traditional domestic space.
Rather than being a prison, the "home," al Haddad says, "is a job and a dwelling for the
woman." If we understand "this illuminating reality, we would realize that it is our duty
to educate the girl so that she might run rightly and effectively the affairs of her
kingdom" (209-1 0).

Likewise, Bourguiba's call for women's education in colonial and postcolonial
Tunisia is generated by his concern with the project of national regeneration. As he puts
it in a post-independence speech:

Reform of customs and ethics is an element that cannot be
dissociated flom the fight against colonialism. What made us

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vulnerable to imperialist covetousness was our weak state, born out

of the ignorance and superstitions to which we were holding,

wrongly believing they were inseparable flom religion.

("Liberation de la femme et réforme des moeurs: tache

primordiale," Discours 4: 184)
The Tunisian woman's emancipation is to be viewed as a strategic nationalist exercise to
bring the Tunisian nation back on its feet after years of decadence. Explaining women's
mission in postcolonial Tunisia, Bourguiba declares: "Our nation had reached in the past
a high degree of civilization and power. Our ancestors, covered with glory, took the
torch to Sicily and Egypt. Kairouan, Mahdia and Tunis were in turn a pole of attraction
for the entire Muslim world." He then identifies the "inhuman conditions" of Tunisian
women--who constitute "half of the Tunisian population"--as the major cause for
Tunisia's present decadence" ("Les Missions des femmes," Discours 10: 193-94).

Bourguiba's feminist agenda reinforces values of female subordination and gender

inequality. During the Women's March on 1 January 1957, he made a public speech
where he reminds the Tturisian woman of her subordinate position” at home:

The Woman must not exaggerate [. . .] The man remains the

head of the family [flenetic applause of the men], and he

will always remain so. The woman cannot at any moment

seek refirge under "Mr. Habib said." She must know that

she has responsibilities to assume and that the man will

always have the last word. (qtd. in "Bourguiba fait

confiance aux femmes," L’Action 13)

In continuity with the earlier Tunisian nationalist literature, the Tunisian nation

appears as a mother in Bourguiba's discourses. Just as a dutiful son shows respect and
tries to please his mother, "everyone must respect law and those in charge of its

application. We are all sons to the same mother, Tunisia, and every one has to contribute

to her happiness" ("Nous sommes tous fils d'une meme mere," Discours 2: 242).

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III) On the Gendered Discourse of Tunisian Nationalism: The Female Body of the
Nation and the Male gendering of Nationalist Agency

In Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality, George
Mosse describes how the nineteenth century bourgeois concept of "respectability"
constructed men as active agents of the nation through their "self-control" and
sublimation of their low passions, and invented women as shallow and flivolous creatures
to be constantly watched (Mosse 17). Whereas the former are seen as the producers of
culture/tradition, the latter are assigned the role of "guardian[s] of morality." In Tunisian
nationalism, the Tunisian woman's identity also lies in her unpaid services and sacrifices
to the umma ("nation") through her dedication to her husband and children. Whereas
Tunisian men embody the political and economic agency of the umma, women are the
keepers of Islamic tradition and the umma's moral and spiritual mission. However, in
contrast with Mosse's claim that only "women" embody the nation's respectability (90), in
the nationalist discourses of al Haddad and Bourguiba, men too are subjected to the ideals
of respectability. As a matter of fact, al Haddad denounces the widespread sexist
mentality that allows man to be adulterous in many ways and holds woman responsible
for the spread of immorality (189). Like al Haddad, in his post-independence speeches,
Bourguiba strips the veil of any moral significance and places the moral burden on both
genders, not just women. "By the knot around the woman's neck," he writes, "we pretend
that we are avoiding shamelessness: however, for shamelessness to exist, there must be
two people; but we reflain ourself flom applying the same principles to the man, the

second partner" (qtd. in "Bourguiba fait confiance aux femmes," L'Action 13).

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Pointing to the alliance between European nationalism and bourgeois morality,
Mosse explains how "homosexuality became the antithesis of respectability" (37).
Hence, if French, German, and British nationalism criminalized homosexuality, it was
because homosexuality constituted a challenge to the bourgeois construct of the family
(28). Like European nationalism, Tunisian nationalism is produced flom a heterosexual
and bourgeois point of view. In his attempt to undermine the claim that the hijab is the
symbol of Islamic identity, a1 Haddad argues that the veil leads to "homosexuality,
lesbianism, and masturbation" (Our Woman 185). Like a1 Haddad, Bourguiba conceives
of gender only in heterosexual terms. Woman remains subordinate to man and exists
only inside the family unit. Tunisian law recognizes only the family unit: the PSC of
1956 is silent on the status of single mothers and the Tunisian judicial system
criminalizes same sex relationships. In "Les Missions des femmes," Bourguiba shows
aversion and repulsion towards the woman who does not fit into the patriarchal mold of
womanhood. For him "the woman [must remain] woman, and the man a man. A
woman's respect for her husband, her devotion and her softness can only make her more
lovable and respectable." He is "horrified," he adds, "by the tomboyish type of women,
and [he has] nothing to do with their arrogance" (Discours 10: 201-02). Thus the
"Tunisian woman" does not exist as a single mother, or a lesbian, she has rights only as a

mother and a wife.

a) The Muslim Woman as the Body of the Umma

In Arabic, the word um ("mother") is closely tied in with the notion of identity

and origin. Indeed, the words um and umma (nation) come flom the same etymological

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root.16 The expression al nuskha al um ("mother copy") means the original copy of the
book. Ummu al kitab ("the mother of the book") is the F atiha. Ummu al watan (mother
of the country) is the capital. In Islam, the word umma refers to the followers of
Muhammad. Someone who has no umma means she/he has no religion. As the above
examples show, the function of the mother as the symbol of the nation is deeply rooted in
the Arabic language. In Our Woman, the "Muslim woman" often appears as a symbol for
the Islamic nation. "She is half of humanity and half of the nation in kind, number and
means of production. Were we to ignore and not care about her decline and misery, that
would only reflect the scorn" (5) we harbor for ourselves.

Al Haddad's writings show not only the tendency to effeminize but also to
racialize the umma. In the Shari 'a law, the "Muslim woman" cannot marry a non-Muslim
man for fear her children would not be born into the Islamic faith. Al Haddad uses this
same justification to condemn the Muslim man's privilege to marry Christian and Jewish
women:

The European woman is not born for us and is not prepared to be
adapted to us. We can only marry women flom our race. And if
they lack the required qualities of perfection, the solution is not to
marry foreign women and leave [our women] as spinsters, but to
emancipate them and protect them flom the dangers of this
progress. They are for us and we are for them and fiom us all is
born the nation. But where are those wise people who understand?
([My emphases] 179)
Al Haddad's attack on the privileges of the Muslim man is a nationalistic response to the

‘7 In Early Islam, the marriage to Christian and Jewish

French politics of assimilation.
women meant an increase in the number of the umma and decrease in the other nations
(53). However, with the establishment of colonial authorities, these marriages do not

lead to the consolidation of the umma, but to the loss of Arab identity. The education of

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the Muslim woman serves not only to fight French colonialism, but also to ensure the
survival of the Arab race. What is subversive here is al Haddad's view that the task of
preserving the nation's racial stock, even though remaining a male prerogative, involves
the control of both the male and female fields of reproduction, not just the Muslim
woman's womb. In post-independence Tunisia, Bourguiba too tried to control male and
female sexuality through his family planning campaign in the 19603 and 19703("Les
Missions des femmes," Discours 10: 203). Encouraging men to use birth control,
Bourguiba reassured them that birth control does not affect a man's virility. To the
general shock of the Tunisian population, he used to explain how having one testicle did
not prevent him flom having a son and flom enjoying a healthy sexual life. Thus, in
contrast with European nationalism, the Tunisian nationalism of Bourguiba and a1

Haddad subjects to patriarchal control both the male and female reproductive systems.

b) Necrophilia or the Male Gendering of Nationalist Agency

An overview of Our Woman reveals a constant opposition between male wisdom
and discipline, and female irrationality and flivolity. Condemning domestic abuse, a1
Haddad explains that the Qur'anic verse that gives the husband the right to educate/punish
his wife for her disobedience, "is reserved [only] for the 'uneducated ignorant wife'" who
is "lazy and negligent towards, herself, husband, and home" (59). Besides, "the fuqaha
say that 'hitting' does not mean severe punishment, but a symbolic act like throwing a
cloth at her so that she "comes back to her senses." He concludes thateither the wife
takes her case to court or we trust the ability of the "husband's wisdom" to "cure" and

"discipline" his uneducated wife for the sake of "conjugal life" (60).

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This opposition between female irrationality and male responsibility is extended
by a1 Haddad to the project of national regeneration. In "The Birth and Being of the
General Renaissance," an article published in the Al Umma newspaper on 18 April 1922,
al Haddad presents civilization and progress as male, and darkness and backwardness as
female: "God," he writes, "may create for the nation in adversity a man or many men who
will try to rescue her flom this darkness." The nation will "listen to them as a patient
listens to his doctor [while] he explains to him/her the disease and shows him/her the
cure" (T ahar aI Haddad: Al a'maal al kaamila 199) (1999). In the same article, only the
"Tunisian man" is presented as the producer of Tunisian history and culture:

Oh Tunisian Man, remember that you are the son of these noble

fathers who have entered history [. . .] The umma is perfectly ready

for the true renaissance [...] It is up to her wise children now to

show their good faith towards her through their "[guiding]" efforts

to show her the right way where "she can safely walk, unafraid of

falling in decadence." (201-02)
This patriarchal image of the umma as a mother "minor" in need of "discipline"/"cure" by
a wise husband/male children is a recurrent trope in the Tunisian nationalist cartoons of
the 19303. A political cartoon published by the newspaper Al Shabab on 19 November
1936 presents Tunisia as an unveiled bed-stricken young woman. On the forehead, she is
wearing a crescent, an Islamic icon decorating Tunisia's national flag today. On her right
side stand two middle-aged men in Western clothes, a doctor and a pharmacist. The
doctor says to the pharmacist: "Give her this medicine and God willing she will be
cured." On the prescription, the doctor wrote: "A respected National Parliament a

fully responsible Ministry." The two men in question were Mahmoud Materi and Ali

Bouhajeb, a real Doctor and a real pharmacist who joined the Tunisian nationalist

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movement. The first became in 1934 the President of the Neo Destur Party and the
second a member of its executive committee. Whereas the two wise men were wearing
glasses--symbol of male wisdom--Tunisia--as the young woman closing her eyes--seems
blind and helpless. Only these two men can save her life. The belief that nationalist
redemption/agency is a male prerogative can be deduced flom the absence of other
women at the young woman's bedside. Whereas the Tunisian woman is the embodiment
of tradition, it is the Tunisian man who takes upon himself the active task of
redeeming/producing Tunisian tradition.

In his 1930 article "Le Voile," Bourguiba focuses only on the male interlocutors
at L'Essor and ignores the feminist intervention of Habiba Menchari, the first Tunisian
woman to speak unveiled and in public on behalf of her secluded sisters. Bourguiba
quickly dismisses Mrs. Menchari as a "charming young woman" who came to "soften us
on the unfortunate lot of her sisters deprived of ligh " to focus only on the male
allocutions of Mr. Noomane, Mr. Durel and MP. Laffitte. Because of her charm and
softness, which Bourguiba constructs as female biology, this "Tunisian woman" is
disqualified as a speaker. Mrs. Menchari can be spoken for, but she can never speak on
behalf of the Tunisian women.

In Bourguiba's post-independence speeches, women are still barred flom "power"
politics; only men can truly "[devote] themselves" to the business of governance ("Deux
fondements du statut personnel," Discours 2: 135). "When we reestablish the woman's
rights," Bourguiba announced, "we don't make her man's equal in all fields. We
acknowledge, however, her equal right to dignity" ("2eme Congres National de

l'U.N.F.T.," Discours 8: 59). Bourguiba's speech shows that even though Tunisian

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women are being made citizens, they are not full or equal citizens. Bourguiba's "we"
designates the "Muslim woman" as an object for "hommoerotic exchange" (Irigaray);
she is not only spoken for by the male nationalist elite, but also excluded flom the
political process impacting her life. For Bourguiba, running the government is a male
not female prerogative. In the early 19603, the Tunisian woman can be a nurse ("Les
Missions des femmes," Discours 10: 200), a teacher (200), a seamstress (201), a
subordinate U.N.F.T. official, but never Bourguiba's equal in leading the nation. The
woman's role in the nationalist project is determined and conditioned by her biological
function as a caring mother and wife.

In Our Woman, a1 Haddad draws a significant opposition between male activity
and female passivity. Whereas the Tunisian men "toil" and "breathe life" into the family
"through the woman" (218), the latter remains dead, passive and inanimate. This rescue
fantasy is significant not just because it underscores the masculine character of nationalist
agency, but also because it underscores the necrophiliac desire of the nationalist male
subject to resurrect/possess the lifeless female body of the nation.

Similarly, in his flequent addresses to the "Tunisian woman," Bourguiba often
presents himself as a twentieth century Pygrnalion fashioning, modeling, and bringing to
life the new Tunisian woman: "Little by little, you will get used to your new rights as we
get used to pure air. Little by little you will become real human beings and our Nation,
God willing, an exemplary Nation" (qtd. in "Bourguiba fait confiance aux femmes,"
L’Action 13).

In the writings of Bourguiba and al Haddad, both the female body and the

domestic space of the family appear as the site where the nationalist war of

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decolonization is waged. Just as the French colonizer sought to dominate its North
African colonies by attacking the Bastille of the Muslim family/home, North Aflican
nationalists reappropriated the family as the site of nationalist resistance. In French
colonial Tunisia, the "Muslim woman" in the nationalist discourses of Bourguiba and a1
Haddad served thus as a metaphor for the dislocation of home, language and history

caused by colonialism.

c) Bourguiba and the Invention of "La Personnalité T unisienne” Before and After
Independence

Bourguiba's concept of "Tunisian personality" refers to the specificity of an
imagined community living within Tunisia's national borders and sharing a common set
of social practices believed to derive flom Islam and Arab culture. Whereas a1 Haddad's
concept of umma has an Islamic etymology, Bourguiba's concept of "personality"
originates in French psychoanalysis and jurisprudence. Even though this term is used
sometimes by Bourguiba to signify the umma ("Islamic nation"), the word is deeply
rooted in French semantics. The French word personnalité ("personality") derives flom
the Latin word "persona," which means the mask or the voice that a character takes on in
a theatrical performance (Salem 135). In the field of law, la personnalitéjuridique refers
to a person who "has the capacity to participate in judicial life" (Salem 136). Then the
word started to be applied to the personne morale, who was the legal actor in French
legal literature. In the field of psychology, the term refers to "a unified integrated subject
constituted by a hierarchical set of biological, psychological, cultural, and social factors

which give him or her "distinctive" identity (Salem 136). Having studied law and

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psychology in Paris, Bourguiba was familiar with the legal and psychological meanings
of this term. As a male lawyer, he was defending the Tunisian personality flom being
eroded by France's policy of assimilation. As such, Bourguiba personified the personne
juridique or personne morale who spoke on behalf of Tunisia, which was itself presented
as an illiterate female judicial subject. The split in Bourguiba's nationalist narrative is
seen in his reliance on a French concept derived florn French jurisprudence to defend the
veil as a component of Tunisia's Islamic personality.18
After independence, however, Bourguiba launched a la Ataturk a campaign to

abolish the veil. Whereas in colonial Tunisia, the veil for Bourguiba was a symbol of
Tunisia's Arab-Islamic identity, in 1956 the veil became in the government's press a
foreign "custom" and in Bourguiba's 15 December 1961 speech "a misunderstanding of
the Qur'anic Verses" (qtd. in Khaled, Adhwa' Mina al Bi'a al T unusiya 'alaa al Tahar
Haddad wa nidhalu jil 398). Reflecting the anti-veil politics of the new government, the
official newspaper L'Action issued on 2 August 1958 an article entitled "Pin-up d'hier et
d'aujourd'hui." The article showed two pictures of Tunisian women. The picture on top,
"Romaine au Musée du Bardo," is a mosaic showing a nude Roman woman brushing her
long hair while contemplating herself in the mirror. The picture on the bottom, "Pin-up a
la plage" shows the upper body of a modern Tunisian woman wearing a swimming suit.
The anonymous author of the article wrote:

Our ancestors the Carthagenians had most often

Phoenicians as grandmothers on the paternal side. [Our

grandmothers] had a strong taste for lipstick, painted

eyelashes, and indecent draperies. They had an arsenal of

beauty creams and ointrnents that would embarrass Miss

Elisabeth Arden herself, by their complexity and efficacy.
(L 'Action 20)

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The article in question mentions the debate over the veil in Tunisia and
Bourguiba's fight against the backward male mentality that is intent upon possessing and
controlling women. The draperies covering the back and legs of the Roman nude and the
"indecent draperies" of our Phoenician grandmothers, not only imply that the veil is a
foreign custom brought by the Arab invaders, but more importantly, it underscores an
originary Tunisian identity located halfway between the Orient and Occident. Unveiling,
rather than being a European import brought about by colonization and European
modernity, becomes a means of renewal with past traditions. The reinvention of the
authentic Tunisian woman as unveiled shows not only that tradition is negotiated in the
present, but also the power of the male nationalist elite to claim a past and a present for
the Tunisian woman. As a matter of fact, the location of Tunisian identity between Rome
and Phoenicia reflects Bourguiba's foreign policy of "Arab flaternity and collaboration
with the Occident"19 ("Fratenrité Arabe et collaboration avec l'Occident," Discours 3:
288). In another speech, Bourguiba states that Islam and Arabism are only parts of the
Tunisian personality and that owing to its geography Tunisia is a bridge between East and
West, "two great civilizations of which all humanity would be proud" (qtd. in Salem
156). In his 19603 speeches, Bourguiba often called for the study of pre-Islarnic Berber
history to prove the unique character of the Tunisian personality. "The interaction
between the native Berbers and the Phoenician settlers," he claimed, "created the Punic
culture, a specifically Tunisian variant of the Phoenician civilization" (Salem 150). In his
assertion of an originary Trmisian identity, Bourguiba claimed to retrieve a Punic
patrimony that had not been sullied for more than two thousand years. This originary

mythical Punic past illustrates the paradox Bhabha finds between "modern territoriality,"

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and "the patriotic, atavistic temporality of Traditionalism" (Nation and Narration 300).
In postcolonial Tunisia, the unveiled body of the Tunisian woman serves as the visible
marker of the nation's modernity. Masquerading as a past Phoenician tradition,
Bourguiba's anti-veiling policy paradoxically serves to unmark or make less visible in the
modern nation state the male privileges protected by the Shari 'a law and Islamic

tradition.

IV) The Muslim Woman as Subject of the Umma and Citizen of the Modern State
Whereas in al Haddad's reformism the Tunisian woman appears primarily as a

subject of the Islamic umma, in Bourguiba's modernist project, the Tunisian woman
occupies a double position as a subject of the Islamic umma and citizen of the secular
state. There is no doubt that the French colonial experience, the introduction of Western
capitalism, and industrialization have in the long run destabilized the old structures and
created the need for female labor, a wage system, and urbanization. After independence,
the modern concept of citizenship has been substituted for the traditional family unit (Al
Mar'a 78). Because of the ethnocentrism20 underlying the French colonial education, al
Haddad constructs the Tunisian "Muslim woman" not as an individual, but as a subject of
the umma. The Tunisian Muslim woman must be educated to transmit the history of her
religion, country and race to her children:

She must learn the principles and history of her religion, her

people's language, the history of her country and race, in a way

that restores her back to life and to her past glory [...] And florn

there, she will be for her children the source of the nationalist spirit

that urges them to arm themselves with virtues and go forward
towards the glory of life. (206)

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Unlike the dichotomy Ahmed observes in Egypt between the campaign for
women's rights "in Islamist terms" (Zeinab a1 Ghazali and Hasan Ismael Hudaybi) and
"the language of secularism and democracy" (Doria Shafik and Ahmed Amin) (196),
there is no clearcut distinction between the language of secular nationalism and religious
reforrnism in Bourguiba's modernist project. Even though he is known in the Muslim
world and the West as one of the greatest secular modernists in the Arab world,
Bourguiba's modernist thought is deeply steeped in Islamic theology. As a matter of fact,
the PSC finds its sources in both French jurisprudence and the Shari 'a law. The
Napoleonic Code21 concerning the crime de passion was in effect in Tunisia flom 1956
till it was repealed in 1993. Also, reproducing article 340 of the French penal code,
article 18 of the PSC states that the crime of polygamy occurs when two essential unions
are contracted, i.e., when one marriage is not dissolved and another is contracted even
outside the legal norms (Chekir 129). Also, Tunisia is the only Islamic country to
introduce adoption laws in 1956; adoption still remains illegal in other Arab-Islamic
countries because it does not conform to the Shari 'a law.

Rather than being a secular leader as the West and the Islamist groups perceive
him, Bourguiba's feminist and reformist agenda is not flee from the dictates of the Shari 'a
law. Bourguiba did not eliminate the Arab Islamic heritage of Tunisia, but used Islam
and Arabic--the two components of the "Tunisian personality"--as a source of political
legitirnation. Even though Bourguiba closed the Zaytuna Mosque, forced women to
unveil, and urged people to stop fasting in Ramadhan--to cultivate the full energy and
potential of the new modern state--many articles in the PSC are based on the Shar'ia law.

According to the official government newspaper L'Action, Bourguiba "seeks to cure and

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insert [Islam] into modern life" ("Le Code va-t-il a l'encontre de la religion?" 3
September 1956: 1), rather than fight it like Ataturk. According to Bourguiba, the
Turkish leader's attempt to eradicate Islam was a failure: "Kemal Ataturk proclaimed his
country to be laic, but the people did not change" (zeme Congres National de l'U.N.F.T.,"
Discours 8: 61). Rather than combating Islam, Bourguiba, on the contrary, tried to take
into account "l'ame du peuple" in his construction of post-independence Tunisia (qtd. in
Salem 126).

On 3 August 1956, the Tunisian Department of Justice issued a letter in which
they stated that the PSC "is compatible with the times and does not contradict the
principles of the Islamic faith" (AI Mar'a 80). The PSC was promulgated on August 13
1956 and became effective only on 1 January 1957. The Zaytuna Sheikhs rejected the
PSC for its content and social implications. In the conservative newspaper Istiqlal,
Muhammad Moncef a1 Monastiri attacked in particular the creation of divorce courts:
"For Muslims to be living under the same roof while waiting for the judge to pronounce
divorce is living in adultery" (Al Mar'a 84). Even Muhammad al Aziz Djait who
participated in the drafting of the PSC asked the government to revise certain articles
which do not go along with the Shar'ia law; namely the prohibition of polygamy and
unilateral divorce, the creation of divorce courts and adoption laws, and the new law
forbidding the Muslim man the right to marry a woman he had three times divorced in the
past (Al Mar'a 88). The PSC was also criticized for not explicitly forbidding the Muslim
woman's right to marry a non-Muslirn man and for not mentioning all of the impediments
to inheritance. A fatwa was published on 11 September 1956, in the Istiqlal condemning

the PSC as inimical to the spirit of the Qur'an and the Shari 'a. Tension grew between the

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religious institution and the government. Djait resigned. The Members of the civil court
also resigned and went back to teach at the Zaytuna. Following the modification of some
articles in the PSC, the Minister of Justice stated in a press conference on 28 February
1964 that he was relying on Islamic, not foreign, law: "We don't need to resort to foreign
judicial systems to organize marriage. We must return to the sources of Islam and the
fikh" (qtd. in Chekir 127). This position has been retained by later judges to disallow the
marriage of the Muslim woman to a non-Muslim man. The Ministry of Justice explicitly
condemned this kind of marriage in a decree published on 5 November 1973.

The PSC dissolved the colonial confessional courts for Jewish, Hanafi, and Maliki
populations, and put family law under the aegis of the state. The bifurcation of Tunisian
jurisprudence into civil/Shari'a law and positive law captures the dichotomy between
authenticity and modernity in Bourguiba's post-independence nationalist discourses.
Whereas family law designates the Tunisian woman as a member of the "Muslim nation,"
positive law such as the right to find a job, the right to vote,22 and the right to equal pay
makes her a citizen of the modern state. As a citizen of the modern state, the Tunisian
Muslim woman is entitled to a remunerative activity. She is encouraged to work as a
nurse, teacher and social assistant--professions deemed "consistent with [her] natural
aptitudes" ("Les Missions des femmes," Discours 10: 199). Rather than being
"consistent" with female nature as Bourguiba claims, the choice of vocations the Tunisian
woman is offered reflects Tunisian patriarchy's construction of women as caring mothers
and devoted wives. Reflecting the laws of Islamic patriarchy, the PSC of 1956 also

stated that only Tunisian men could give Tunisian citizenship to their children. Even

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though the nation is perceived as female, citizenship is viewed as male since it is
bestowed through the father, not the mother.23

In "Le Statut des femmes," Chekir notes that "as soon as the principle of gender
equality is mentioned, resistance appears in the name of authenticity, universality, calling
at times even for its negation in the name of cultural or civilizational specificity." Such
specificity she writes, is "detrimental to women's rights" as it conveys "a discrimination
against women and conveys patriarchal and masculine supremacy" (Chekir 92-3). For
instance, out of the 24 international conventions adopted by the United Nations' General
Assembly, only 18 have been ratified by Tunisia. Tunisia ratified the international laws
against gender discrimination in education (1969), but refused to ratify article 16 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the New York Convention of 10 December
1962, which stipulated women's right to marry someone outside their faith (Chekir 64).
The Tunisian government also held reservations towards other international laws
outlawing gender discrimination in inheritance. Tunisia refirsed to ratify the international
laws in contradiction with the Islamic laws of the PSC. Thus, in post-independence
Tunisia, Bourguiba's concept of "Tunisian personality" and its implication of cultural
specificity reinforced patriarchal rule and privileges and reduced the Tunisian woman to
an inferior legal status. Parallel to the judicial inequality founded on the Shari'a law, the
dominant male order also granted the "Tunisian woman" an egalitarian judicial status in
certain cases like those involving employment, wages, and education. It is this split
which characterizes the construction of the "Muslim woman" in Tunisia since

Bourguiba's promulgation of the PSC in 1956.

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Under the centralized government of Bourguiba in post-independence Tunisia,
there was a shift flom family to state patriarchy. In Bourguiba's own words, "the family
is no longer limited to the circle of parents. It extends to the village, the country, and
beyond the flontiers, to encompass the Greater Maghreb, the Arab community, the entire
continent" ("Les Missions des femmes," Discours 10: 207). In contrast with her function
as a metaphor for the dislocation of home during the colonial period, after independence,
the Tunisian woman became a metaphor for reterritdrialization beyond the boundaries of
nation, language, culture, and race. As such she is both a promise and a threat to the
Tunisian nationalist male elite. As the patriarchal concept of the family is extended
beyond the borders of nation to encompass the whole Aflican continent, the body of the
"Tunisian woman" with its association of home/family/umma poses a danger to the very
concept of Tunisian identity. Like the Aflican myth of the devouring mother24--the
threatening figure for that which encompasses all the cultures, races, religions, and
languages of Aflica--the "Tunisian woman" as the body of the nation could also
consume/devour what Bourguiba calls "the Tunisian personality"; hence, the need to
control her destructive sexuality by preventing her flom marrying non-Muslims, and
denying Tunisian citizenship to her children flom a foreign father.

In this era of state patriarchy, the protective power of the veil found a substitute in
the hacana ("shield/immunity") of education. In a 1958 speech, Bourguiba stated: "The
veil does not preven " the abuses against a woman's virtue, but education does
("Libération de la femme et réforme des mmurs: tache primordiale," Discours 4: 186-87).
The idea of education as a shield to protect a woman's virtue dates back to the Islamic

refonnism of the Egyptian man of letters Rif‘at a1 Tahtawi (1801-1873) who, despite his

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defense of the veil, believed that education was the best guarantee to protect a woman's
virtue (Al Mar'a 29). The same idea was taken up by al Haddad when he insisted that
handicraft skills were the best hisn ("citadel") for the married woman and her children.
Families with no such skills could expose their daughters to sexual exploitation when
they sent them to work as maids. The latter risk losing "their virtue" (120) by becoming
prey to the male predators or "wolfs" (121).

The dominant male power of the modern state is best expressed in Bourguiba's
warnings to those who attempt to rob a "Tunisian woman's of her virtue." In a speech
delivered on 5 December 1957, Bourguiba stated that "justice [had] been done in all those
cases [his government] knew of" and [warned] that "the magistrates [would] not fail to
severely punish anyone who tries to violate a young girl's virtue" ("Coordination des
services, respect des individus et liberation de la femme," Discours 4: 21).

Whether they are high school girls or members of the U.N.F.T., all Tunisian
women have been given reassurances that they could count on the protection of
Bourguiba. To avoid the harassment of unveiled female students, Bourguiba passed an
order "to close down the cafes, and placed police units in flont of schools to intercept and
arrest these young delinquents" ("Zeme Congrés National de l'U.N.F.T.," Discours 8: 60).
In the same speech, he promised to punish those "criminal" fathers who did not allow
their daughters to go to school.

Even though the Tunisian State offers its female citizens police and legal
protection, the latter must abide by the rules of Bourguiba, the Father of the Nation. As
he himself put it in 1958: "Some measures have been taken to protect the girls when they

leave their all girls' schools. On the other hand, the woman [my emphasis] must, by her

155

behavior, impose respect" ("Libération de la femme et réforme des mceurs: tiche
primordiale" 187). Bourguiba's distinction between "gir " and "woman" is quite
significant here. In the first part of the sentence, the word "girl" denotes female
innocence and underscores a need for patriarchal protection. In the second part of the
sentence, the word "woman" is used to suggest woman's sexual power or fitna and to
remind her of her need to subject herself to patriarchal authority, not to seek its
protection.

Created by Bourguiba in 1956, the U.N.F.T.25 "counts [primarily] on the support
of the governors and the delegates, on the authority of the State, and on its financial help"
("2eme Congres National de l'U.N.F.T." 59). As an extension of the State, the U.N.F.T.
was created to teach the masses of Tunisian women their rights and duties in the new
modern Tunisia. In "Les Missions des femmes," Bourguiba states that the purpose of the
U.N.F.T. is to explain to women "their new rights," "the way in which they are to be
used," and the "limits women must not trespass," to avoid a situation "as harmful as the
old one" (195). The relation between Bourguiba and the U.N.F.T. is based on a gendered
division of labor. Whereas Bourguiba's government sponsors the U.N.F.T. and provides
it with financial assistance, the U.N.F.T. assumes the traditional female roles of feeding
and clothing the needy and inculcating hygiene, nutrition and morality to the children of
the new modern state (Ilhem Marzouki, Le Mouvement des femmes en T unisie au Heme
sie‘cle: Féminisme et politique 189). Unlike the Moroccan and the Egyptian feminist
movements, the Tunisian feminist movement in the Bourguiba era had no history of
political mobilization and militancy. It had been contained flom the beginning by the

state. One of the responsibilities of the U.N.F.T. is to fight immorality: it must not only

156

teach women that sexual needs cannot be satisfied outside the institution of "maniage"
(qtd. in Marzouki 161), but also warn them against the dangers of neglecting their
families that their work outside the home could incur. The U.N.F.T. must make them
"aware" of their "responsibilities" as wives and mothers to prevent the breakup of the
family. As Radhia Haddad, the President of the U.N.F.T. once put it: her mission was to
explain to the women "that the rights that [they had] obtained must not bring a revolution
in the families" (qtd. in Marzouki 173).

What does a modern Muslim woman mean to Bourguiba and the U.N.F.T.? A
modern Tunisian woman is a "nationalist subject," who is "responsible" rather than
"liberated." Rejecting what she perceives as "the western model" of female
emancipation, Radhia Haddad observes that "the modern woman who wakes up after
midday after the tumultuous evenings she spent in salons, joking, smoking cigarettes, and
playing cards to kill boredom," has no place "in our country." Similarly, the modern
Tunisian woman must discard the "backward religious practices" such as visiting Saints
and keep only the norms of Islamic "morality" and "rationality" (qtd. in Marzouki 177).
Thus, the modern Tunisian woman occupies an ambivalent position between authenticity

and modernity.

V) Power Politics and the Reception of al Haddad's and Bourguiba's Reformist
Thought

According to Bhabha, there is a split "in the production of the nation" between the
"accumulative temporality of the pedagogical, and the repetitious, recursive strategy of

the perfonnative" (Nation and Narration 297). This split in the process of writing the

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nation is best illustrated in Bourguiba's shift in his attitude towards the veil. If Bourguiba
defended the veil in 1929, it was because unveiling entailed not only the loss of Tunisian
identity, but also the "Tunisian woman's" escape flom her patriarchal role as mother and
wife. "In following the fashion of the moment," Bourguiba wrote retroactively in 1960,
"the woman [risks] being distracted from her milieu, cutting her ties with the past, and
losing herself in an alien community." This "adventure into Francisation" means
"scoff[ing] at her own mother and family." Letting France "lead our social evolution"
means falling flom the "Charybdis" of decadence to the "Scylla" of assimilation, as we
concede "our fusion with the heart of French collectivity" ("2eme Congres National de
l'U.N.F.T.," Discours 8: 50). As a nationalist narrative, Bourguiba's speech seems split at
the level of performance: while defending the Islamic veil as a symbol of Tunisian
identity, Bourguiba relies on a Homerian/Western metaphor to convey the uniqueness of
the culture he is defending (4).

This split at the site of enunciation is often tied to a particular socio-historical
context. As he tries to negotiate a position flom which to speak, Bourguiba often falls
into contradictory positions. On the 40th anniversary of a1 Haddad's death, Bourguiba
delivered a speech where he justifies his 1929 position on the veil. In this speech,
Bourguiba states that the Zaytuna Sheikhs used al Haddad as a scapegoat for their own
participation in and silence over the Eucharist Congress that took place in Rue de la
Montagne on 7-11 May 1930. The Catholic participants were "dressed in the costume of
the crusaders" holding flags on which was written "The ninth Crusade." The "statue of
the Cardinal Lavigerie was erected at the entry of the Medina holding the cross." "I felt

provoked," Bourguiba writes; "[the Cardinal] intended to thrust the cross into this land,

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according to the doctrine they were professing in Algeria" ("Tahar El Haddad, Vengé de
ses détracteurs" 22-3). The Eucharist Congress was followed in 1931 by the
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the French colonization of Tunisia and the
centennial of the French conquest of Algeria. Because of these events, Bourguiba
remained silent over a1 Haddad's book even though he shared his views on the veil.

Even though after independence Bourguiba abolished the veil, polygamy, and the
habus system, he did not implement al Haddad's call for gender equality in inheritance.
Given the rivalry over the leadership of Tunisia between Bourguiba and Salah Ben
Youssef,26 Bourguiba had to cater to the Tunisian male clergy of the Zaytuna Mosque,
most of whom were supporters of Bourguiba's political rival Ben Youssef.

Identifying with al Haddad, Bourguiba claims that he and a1 Haddad had common
enemies: the colonial powers, the Old Destur, and the Zaytuna Sheikhs. According to
Bourguiba, the controversy was created by "les archéos" and "les enturbannés" of the Old
Destur leadership-Ahmed Essafi, Salah Farhat, Mohieddine a1 Klibi--who wanted to get
their revenge on al Haddad for denouncing their role in the failure of the union of
Tunisian workers (C.G.T.T.) and the exile of Muhammad Ali a1 Hammi in 1925 ("Tahar
El Haddad, vengé de tous ses détracteurs" 3-5).

Even though he encountered resistance flom the Zaytuna Mosque, Bourguiba's
political power, class and educational privileges allowed him to implement his feminist
reforms. As al Haddad was a powerless and poor man of letters, his reformist ideas were
conversely doomed to failure. In Tunisia, a1 Haddad's harshest critics were Muhammad
Salah Ben Mrad who wrote Al Hidad ’ala Imraat al-Haddad (Mourning over al Haddad's

Woman) (Khaled 337), and Amor Ibn Ibrahim E1 Barri El Madani who wrote along letter

159

entitled "Sayfal 'haq ’ald man 1d yard al 'haq" ("The sword of Justice on he who does not
See Justice") (Khaled 332). Both authors attacked a1 Haddad on his evolutionary
conception of the Qur'an and for threatening their male privileges deriving florn the
Islamic laws of inheritance and the habus system. In the Islamic world, both the
Egyptian newspaper A1 Ikhaa (Khaled 318) and the Algerian newspaper Al Shihab (qtd.
in Al Nahdha 30 November 1930) accused al Haddad of apostasy and madness.

In addition to the colonial context, which turned the veil into a symbol of
Tunisian identity, there was also a generational and class conflict between al Haddad and
his opponents. The Old Zaytuna Mosque was led by the powerful and conservative
aristocratic families of Tunis like Neifar, Ben Mrad, and Ben Achour who were working
in tandem with the French colonial authorities (Chenri 67). The reformist movement of
the 19203 and 19303 was led by people flom a humble origin like a1 Haddad and Chebbi
(Marzouki 32). The latter, with the new rising bourgeoisie of the Sahel, often criticized
the dogmatic teaching at the Zaytuna Mosque. Similarly, if Mohieddine a1 Kelibi, the
leader of The Old Destur Party chose to attack a1 Haddad and repress the popular unionist
movement of Muhammad Ali al Hammi, it was because the Old Destur was a
conservative party which collaborated with the French authorities (Cherrri 85-6).

In "'No Longer in a Future Heaven,"' McClintock argues that in "bidding women
to hold their tongues until after the revolution," male nationalists are in fact using "a
strategic tactic to defer women's demands." "The lessons of international history," she
says, show that "women who are not empowered to organize during the struggle will not
be empowered to organize after the struggle" (Dangerous Liaisons 109). The case of

Tunisia provides a counter example to McClintock's argument. Bourguiba's defense of

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the veil in 1929 did not prevent him flom enacting after independence the PSC, which
despite its limits, granted Tunisian women rights unequaled in the rest of the Muslim
world. Even though of a qualified patriarchal nature, the reformist thought of a1 Haddad
and Bourguiba suggests that despite the essentialism, the changes encoded were still
liberating for Tunisian women. In the 19903, Tunisian feminists participated in many of
the international conferences on women's rights in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East such
as the Beijing Conference in September 1995. The law of 5 April 1996 allowed the
spouses to have a pre-marital agreement where they decide to have a joint ownership of
the properties acquired after marriage. Unlike the PSC of 1956, which recognized
woman's rights only as mother and wife, article 74 in the reforms of 1998 allowed the
single mother to use a paternity test to sue the biological father for child alimony.
However, the natural children are given the right to claim only the father's name. The
single mother cannot use her own name to get welfare flom the State (Al Mar’a 128-29).
Still today international laws regarding gender equality in inheritance and sexual
orientation are not recognized in Tunisia because they are deemed incompatible with the
"country's religious and cultural heritage" (Al Mar'a 141).

The history of Tunisian nationalism shows not only the political deployment of
the "Muslim woman" in the nationalist effort to resist the French politics of assimilation,
but also her exclusion flom the debate over women's role in the anti-colonial struggle.
As the nationalist newspapers of the time attest, most” of the discourses on the "Muslim
woman" in Tunisia were produced by men and for men. Like the Islamic feminism of
Memissi, the female Orientalism of Eberhardt, and the psychoanalytic and feminist

French theories of Fanon, and Cixous, the discourse of Tunisian nationalism on the veil

161

and the "Muslim woman" is quite ambivalent. A symbol of Islamic identity in
Bourguiba's speeches during French colonial Tunisia, the veil became the symbol of
backwardness in postcolonial Tunisia. This shows that rather than being static, the veil is
a historically situated signifier. Similarly, in contrast with her function as a metaphor for
the dislocation of home and language in French colonial Tunisia, the Tunisian woman
came to embody the split between modernity and tradition in postcolonial Tunisia. While
unveiling, work, and education were synonymous with an inevitable social progress, the
Shar'ia laws came to stand for an unchanging Tunisian essence that has to be jealously

protected flom the erosion of Western culture.

 

' L'Action is the Tunisian government's official newspaper after independence. Quoted flom an article
written by Leila, the feminist editorial in L'Action, "Quoi de neuf pour les femmes?"

2 All the translations flom the Arabic and French in this chapter are mine except the quotations flom Norma
Salem's Habib Bourguiba, Islam, and the Creation of Tunisia.

3 In his criticism of Bhabha, Henry Louis Gates Jr. argues that in providing a psychoanalytic explanation
for the split within the nationalist subject, Bhabha leaves out the role of history in the production of culture
("Critical Fanonism"). Gates's criticism, however, seems based on the premise that the symbolic is a
universal sign situated outside history. As a matter of fact, Bhabha does not deny the impact of history on
the construction of the nationalist subject as Gates claims. Bhabha clearly states that he does not "wish to
deny" the "specific historicities" of "the cultural construction of nationness" ("DissemiNation: Time,
Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation" Nation and Narration 292). Gates's criticism of Bhabha
betrays a view that holds history to be divorced flom human agency. Even though it takes into account the
weight of history, this chapter argues that there is no history without agents of history, and no agents of
history without discourse.

‘ The concept of class in Tunisian society is somewhat problematic. In Tunisia, class is defined not just by
money as in the USA, but also by ethnic and family history. My understanding and use of this term are
therefore quite limited given the scarce research on this subject.

5 In 1911, the Zaytuna Mosque provided primary, high school, and higher education. A1 Haddad did not
study beyond the T atw'i Diploma, which he received as the end of his high school education. For
information about the educational system in the Zaytuna Mosque, see Ahmed Khaled, Adhwa' Mina al Bi ’a
al Tunusiya 'alaa al T ahar Haddad wa nidhalujil (Tunis: Al dar a1 tunusiya II it] nashr, 1985): 26-41.

6 Following the arrest of the Tunisian nationalist leader Ali Balhouane, there was a large demonstration in
the capital. The French army opened fire on the unarmed Tunisian demonstrators. Dozens were killed,
hundreds were wounded, and three thousands were arrested. The French colonial government dissolved the
Néo Destour Party, executed many nationalist leaders and sent many others to jail in Fort Saint Nicolas in
Marseilles.

162

 

7 Bourguiba's attack on al Th'aalbi as an "archéo" and a "larron" after independence ("Al Haddad Vengé de
ses détracteurs" 15) is caused by the political rivalry between the members of the Old and the Neo Destur
as well as by Bourgurha's appropriation of the sole title of "Le Libérateur de la femme Tunisienne." As
early as the 19103, a1 Th'aalbi, a Zaytunian Sheikh like al Haddad, was calling for women's unveiling and
education. The history of Tunisian feminism and nationalism till the late 19803 was centered around the
personal cult of Bourguiba, "Le Combatant Supreme."

3 I am borrowing Eric Grekowicz's words in Hybridity and Discursive Unrest in Late Colonial ANglophone
Prose of South Asia (1880-1950)," diss., Michigan State University, 2001.

9 I shall return to this point later when I discuss the shift in Bourguiba's attitude towards the veil in terms of
the power politics in colonial and postcolonial Tunisia.

'0 A cultural club flequented by the Socialist Party.
” A Tunisian socialist lawyer who wrote against the veil in Tunis Socialiste.

'2 Joachim Durel was the leader of the Socialist Party and the General Secretary for the French workers'
union in Tunis.

'3 In the Maliki school of Islam, the husband can divorce his wife simply by saying three times that she is
divorced.

1‘ A land which is habus is a land which cannot be bought or sold. This system prevents not only the
splitting up of property, but also the daughter's inheritance as the land is kept under the management of her
brothers or uncles.

‘5 The Article 23 of PSC that stipulates that the wife be obedient to her husband has been revoked only in
1993.

'6 I am using the Arab-Arab dictionary of Hasan Said a1 Karmi, Al hadi ila Iughati al 'Arab: Qamus 'arabi-
'arabi (Beirut: Dar lubnan 1i attiba'a wa al nashr, 1991).

'7 In a 1975 speech entitled "Tahar El Haddad, Venge de ses détracteurs," Bourguiba makes the claim that
al Haddad remained silent over the issue of naturalization in the early 19303. Bourguiba's claim is
inaccurate for al Haddad did talk about the issue of naturalization in "Naturalization is a Breach of the
Protectorate Treaty," an article he published in the AI Umma newspaper on 13 November 1923. If the issue
of naturalization came to the fore in the 19303, it was not because there were no naturalization laws prior to
that date, but because of the impact of the 1929 economic crisis and the introduction of the tiers colonial,
which gave French citizens a monetary incentive to immigrate to the colonies.

'8 According to Abdelwahab Bouhdiba, the Tunisian nation "canre into being as a result of Bourguiba's
action" (Salem 183). In contrast, Hichem Djait made a distinction between a "national political
personality" and a "cultural and ideological Tunisian personality" (185). It is the second personality, based
on an imaginary civilizational, religious, and linguistic affiliation with the Muslim middle East that was
used by Bourguiba to legitimize his power and "the national political personality" (188). Neither the
Tunisian men of letters Bouhdiba and Djait, nor Norma Salem, however, tried to examine how Bourguiba's
concept of "personality" is implicated in the gender politics in colonial and postcolonial Tunisia. See
Abdelwahab Bouhdiba, A la recherche des normes perdues (Tunis: Maison Tunisienne de l'Edition, 1973):
18-9. Also see Hichem Djait, La Personnalité et le devenir Arabo-Islamique (Paris: Seuil, 1974): 52-3.

'9 Even though there was an infusion of non Arabic people who came to Tunisia after the first Islamic
conquests, the mythical Tunisian identity that Bourguiba constructs does not include the Turks, the
Andalusian Jewish and Muslim immigrants, the Europeans, and the Black Aflicans who came to Tunisia
after the seventh-century A.D., through conquest, exile, and slavery.

163

 

2° According to Jean Francois Martin, the history of Tunisia and North Aflica was revised in 1904 in
French school manuals to emphasize the progress of French civilization and backwardness of the Arab-
Islamic civilization. A French textbook published in 1916 stated: "At the moment of the French
intervention, anarchy and chaos ruined Tunisia. Its land so fertile in the past became largely barren. The
rural lands were ravaged by wars, and the poor inhabitants were under the pressure of the functionaries.
France succeeded in establishing the reign of peace and order; it brought the country back into prosperity;
and dedicated itself to give the indigenous population the tools to improve their own conditions" (Histoire
de la Tunisie Contemporaine: De Ferry (‘1 Bourguiba 1 881-1956 99).

2' Article 207 of the PSC whereby the husband was liable only to a five-year imprisonment for the murder
of his wife or accomplice caught in the act of adultery was repealed only in 1993 when new reforms were
introduced to curb domestic violence.

22 Tunisian women obtained the right to vote on 14 March 1957.

23 In 1993, the Tunisian woman obtained the right to give Tunisian citizenship to her children flom a
foreign father, though born abroad. However, this right is null and void without the father's consent.

2‘ See the myth bété in Denise Paulme, La mere dévorante: Essai sur la morphologie des contes Afi'icains
(France: Gallimard, 1976) 278.

25 In French colonial Tunisia, there were many other feminist organizations: L'Union Musulmane des
Femmes de Tunisie created in 1936 by Bchira Ben Mrad, the daughter of Muhammad Salah Ben Mrad who
fiercely attacked al Haddad's book; La Section Féminine de L'Asscociation des Jeunes Musulmans (1944)
directed by Mrs. Souad Khattech, wife of the President of this association Sheikh Muhammad Salah
Ennaifer (Marzouki 36); l'Union des Femmes de Tunisie (UFT) created in 1944 by the Tunisian
Communist Party; l'Union des Jeunes filles de Tunisie at the end of WWII which tried to cut across
distinctions of race, religion, and political opinion" (97); and Le Club de la Jeune Fille Tunisienne in 1954
presided by Tawhida Farhat (36). After independence, these organizations slowly lost their political
activism, as the state monopolized and thus controlled the Tunisian feminist movement by creating and
sponsoring the U.N.F.T. in 1956 (157).

2° He challenged Bourguiba's leadership in two major ways: first, by claiming an Arab-Islanric identity
rather than a specific Tunisian personality as Bourguiba did, and second, by rejecting the internal autonomy
accords sanctified by the New Destur and supporting instead an independent and united Maghreb.

27 There are few exceptions such as Habiba Menchari, the first Tunisian woman to speak unveiled in public,
and Eve Nohelle, who wrote for the communist newspaper Tunis Socialiste.

164

Chapter Five: Reinventing Domesticity and the Sacred: The House of the Prophet as
a Technology of Power

Whereas the previous chapters studied the ideological production of the "Muslim
woman" in the discourses of Orientalism, feminist theory, and Tunisian nationalism, this
last chapter excavates the domestic politics underlying the House of the Prophet in The
Epistle of Forgiveness (1032) by the Abbasid poet Abul Ali a1 Ma'arri (973-1057), Al
Tawba (The Redemption) (1992) by the Tunisian novelist Aroussia Naluti (1952-), Loin
de Médine (1991) by the Algerian writer Assia Djebar (1936-), and The Satanic Verses
(1988) by Salman Rushdie (1947-). If this chapter focuses on this symbolic, it is because
in many parts of the Islamic world, the model of domesticity provided by the House of
the Prophet is deployed as the final authority in promulgating laws affecting the lives of
Muslim women. This explains why this powerful symbolic is being claimed today not
only by the Islamists to justify women's seclusion, but also by those who are on the
margin of the dominant discourse of Islamic patriarchy; namely, those Muslim feminists
who want to advance women's rights in Islamic societies. The major argument of this
chapter is that the House of the Prophet is a technology of power (Foucault, Discipline
and Punish 24) that is constantly changing its significance as it is being deployed and
appropriated by different groups for various political reasons. Deployed as an instrument
of political legitimation during the Abbasid dynasty, this powerful Muslim symbolic
became a metaphor for corruption and political absolutism in a1 Ma'arri's divine comedy,
a critique of social disparities in postcolonial Tunisia in Naluti's Al T awba, the symbol of
Islam's sexual oppression of women in Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, and a means of

self-empowerrnent in Djebar's feminist novel Loin de Médine.

165

This chapter is divided into three main sections. The first examines the House of
the Prophet as a technology of power in Islamic memory. The second section focuses on
al Ma'arri's divine comedy. Even though it is told flom a male viewpoint, The Epistle of
Forgiveness displays resistance towards Abbasid gender ideology. In contrast with the
Abbasid rulers' manipulation of this Muslim symbolic, al Ma'arri rejects the House of the
Prophet as a technology of power and reconstructs it as a metaphor for social corruption
and political absolutism. This second section also examines the reinvention of
Muhammad's household in Al T awba (The Redemption), a 1992 readaptation of a1
Ma'arri's divine comedy by the Tunisian novelist Aroussia Naluti.

The third section of this chapter focuses on Assia Djebar's feminist reconstruction
of Ahl al Beit ("Muhammad's household") in Loin de Médine. This section starts by
examining Djebar's subversive reading of the earlier discourses on the House of the
Prophet. The central reading here holds that Djebar is reinventing Muhammad's
household through the lens of both écriture feminine and Islamic feminism. Djebar's
feminist construction of this sacred symbolic constitutes an act of self-empowerment
allowing her--as the other within--to respond to the mental and physical violence
perpetrated against Algerian women in the late 19803 and early 19903 by the Islamist
groups such as the Islamic Salvation Army (FIS) and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
The last part of this chapter will briefly compare Djebar's feminist project in Loin de
Médine to Sahnan Rushdie's postmodern invention of the House of the Prophet in The
Satanic Verses. This section will also examine Djebar's construction of a "liberal" or

1

"spiritual" Islam versus an eternally repressive Arab culture.

166

I) Excavating Islamic Memory: The House of the Prophet as a Technology of Power

In Archaeology of Knowledge, Michel Foucault states that archaeology, rather
than being a search for inventions, is to question and "uncover the regularity of a
discursive practice" (145), without postulating an "original discourse" (148). It is from
this Foucauldian perspective that this chapter examines the discourses on the House of
the Prophet. Rather than postulating an authentic or a retrievable true model of
Muhammad's life, this chapter examines the House of the Prophet as a semiotic object.
As a sign, the House of the Prophet is tied to three levels of discourse: theological,
etymological and vernacular. In Islamic tradition, the expression ahl al beit ("People of
the House") designates Muhammad's family. Even though it refers to the
domestic/private self of Muhammad on the literal level, this expression is not separate
flom Muhammad's public self, for the second source of legislation in Islam after the
Qur'an is the hadith, which is composed of Muhammad's statements and actions as
reported by his wives or the Sahaba ("his disciples"). On the etymological level, the
words haram ("sanctuary"), hardm ("sin"), harim ("harem"), come flom the same root
“h *r*m,” meaning sacred, and inviolable. In the North African vernacular, the word dar
or beit ("house") is a synecdoche for family. "How is your house?" means "how is your
wife/family?" In this sense, the House of the Prophet becomes a liminal or sacred space
where the public and the domestic are conflated. This is why this chapter examines the
House of the Prophet at the axes of gender, space, and temporal and spiritual power.

An overview of early Islamic history reveals that the House of the Prophet has
always been used as an instrument of political legitimacy. In a speech he has delivered at

the Battle of Kerbala (Iraq)--just before being killed by the Umayyad troops--al Hussein,

167

the grandson of Muhammad, according to the Muslim historian Tabari, claims his right to
divine and political authority through his blood ties to the Prophet's household:

People of Koufa, I know that my words will not save me; but I

want to speak, to establish your responsibility before God and my

own innocence before the battle starts. You all know [...] that I

am the son of Fatima, daughter of the Apostle of God, and son of

'Ali, cousin of the Prophet and the first believer. Dja'far with the

two wings was my uncle, 'Hamza the prince of martyrs, was my

father's uncle, and Hassan was my brother, who, according to the

Prophet, will rule over the inhabitants of Paradise. If you believe

in God and the mission of my grandfather, the Apostle of God, tell

me what crime I have committed so that you attempted to take my

life. Can't you see how the Christians venerate even the shoe of

J esus's donkey and the Jews everything that remains flom Moses,

and how all nations honor their prophets and their families?

(Tabari, Chronique 5/6: 42-3)1

Perhaps even more than the Umayyad, the Abbasid Caliphs justified their political

and divine authority as members of the Prophet's family through Muhammad's paternal
uncle a1 'Abbas. Because the descendants of Ali2 and their Shi'i supporters also presented
themselves as heirs to Muhammad's spiritual and temporal heritage, the Sunni Abbasid
rulers massacred almost all of the male descendants of Fatima and Ali.3 Today, in the
face of unemployment, inflation, and poverty, the House of the Prophet is being deployed
not only by the Islamists to justify women's economic and social oppression, but also by
feminists such as Memissi (The Veil and the Male Elite), Ahmed (Women and Gender in
Islam), and Djebar (Loin de Médine). Whether they rely on the science of the hadith,
écriture féminine, or a Marxist approach, in excavating the archeology of the House of

the Prophet, these Muslim feminists claim that they are resurrecting a spiritual Islam/a

feminist revolution, which has been strangled in its cradle by Orthodox Islam.

168

II) Reinventing the House of the Prophet: A Study of Domestic and Power Politics in
a1 Ma'arri's Shi'i Paradise
a) Abul Ald al Ma 'arri and his Garden: An Introduction

Born in 973 in Ma'arrat al Nu'man, a small village between Aleppo and Damascus
during the Abbasid dynasty (750-1258), Al Ma'arri lost his sight at the age of four after
contracting smallpox. Even though poor, his family held education in high esteem. His
grandmother was recognized as a hadith transmitter. . He was trained in Arabic
lexicography, hadith transmission, Qur'anic recitation, and Arabic literature (Tahar K. a1
Garradi, The Image of Al Ma’arri as an Infidel Among Medieval and Modern Critics 12)
(1987). His literary career was quite prolific, he wrote many collections of poems such
as Saqt al Zand, the Luzumiyat, Al F usul wa al Ghayat as well as a book entitled Zajr al
Nabih where he explains some misinterpreted verses in the Luzumiyat. He also wrote
personal letters and epistles, like Risalat al Hana (The Epistle of Happiness), Risalat al
Mala 'ika (The Epistle of Angels), and Risalat al Ghufi'an (The Epistle of Forgiveness). He
lived during the reign of Caliph al Hakim bi Arnr Illah, an eccentric Fatirnid ruler who
encouraged the spread of mystical ideas such as the doctrine of immanence (al HuluI)
(The Epistle ofForgiveness 7).4 Al Ma'arri resided in Baghdad for a short period of time
(1009-1010) where he visited its famous library dar al '11»: ("The House of Knowledge").
He soon retired to his home in Ma'arrat al Nu'man after being publicly humiliated in the
majlis (literary salon) of Abu al Qasim Ali al Sharif al Murtadha. Al Ma'arri was dragged
by his leg flom the house of a1 Murtadha for defending the Abbasid poet a1 Mutannabi

whom a1 Murtadha hated and despised (Edouard Amin al Bustarri, Abu al Ala" al Ma 'arri:

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Muta'amilfi al dhulumat 19-21). After this incident a1 Ma'arri turned to asceticism and
secluded himself for almost fifty years.

In his divine comedy,5 a1 Ma'ani brings together poets flom the J ahilia period and
Islam, not just to offer lessons in literary criticism, but also to denounce the predicament
of the man of letters reduced to composing panegyric poetry for the Abbasid Emirs and
Viziers. Al Ma'ani's work comes in fact as a response to a letter flom the panegyrist poet
Ibn ul Qarih Ali Ibn Mansr‘rr,6 in which he apologizes for losing a letter he was charged to
deliver to al Ma'arri. In his letter, Ibn ul Qarih explains how all of his belongings--
including al Ma'arri's letter--were stolen and complains about the loss of morals. The
Epistle of Forgiveness is an ironic response to the contrived literary style and the self-
righteousness Ibn ul Qarih exhibits in his letter to al Ma'arri. In his letter, a1 Ma'arri tells
Ibn ul Qarih that he cannot have access to heaven through panegyric poetry as he used to
do on earth. Using Ibn ul Qarih's hypocrisy and corruption as example, al Ma'arri's
divine comedy provides a social critique of Abbasid society and displays cynicism
towards Islam's orthodox beliefs in hell, heaven, and redemption, through a literal
presentation of the imagery of hell and paradise found in the Qur'an and Arabic poetry.

Al Ma'arri's attitude towards religion in The Epistle of Forgiveness cannot be
understood without examining the political and religious strife that tore the Islamic world
open in the tenth and eleventh century. In al Ma'arri's lifetime, many Caliphates appeared
in Egypt, Baghdad, and Aleppo. They all used religion as a tool to justify their rise to
power. Like the Abbasid dynasty, whose rulers claimed divine sovereignty through
Muhammad's uncle, the Fatimid, rejected the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, and ruled

over Egypt and Aleppo by claiming direct descendency flom Fatima Azzahra, the

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daughter of Muhammad. In Baghdad, political power shifted hands flom the Sunni
Abbasid Caliphs to the Shi'i Buwayhid family, who were their Persian military
commanders. Even though both the Buwayhid and the F fitimid were Shi'iah, they were
enemies. As Twelver Shi'is ("Twelve Irnarns"), the Buwayhid were happy to serve the
Sunni Caliphate in opposing the conservatism of the Fatimids, who were flom the Isma'ili
branch of the Shi'ah. In his Luzumiat, al Ma'arri reports the dispossession of
Muhammad's descendents by the Abbasid dynasty, the weakness of the Abbasid ruler a1
Mansur, and the rise to power of the Persians: "In the Wilderness were exiled Banu

Hashim/And onto the hands of the Daylam [Persians] passed power" (II: 472).

b) The House of the Prophet Between Continuity and Resistance: A Shi’i Heaven and a
Monogamous Muhammad

An overview of a1 Ma'arri's Edenic garden reveals both conformity and resistance
towards the Abbasid gender ideology and the earlier discourses on the House of the
Prophet. Whereas Ali (Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law), Ibrahim (Muhammad's
son), and Harnza (Muhammad's uncle) ride their horses and walk around fleely on the
Day of Reckoning, Fatima is secluded7 in her heavenly "abode" and comes out only once
every "twenty-four hours of earthly time to greet her father Muhammad" (The Epistle of
Forgiveness 83). F atima is not to be seen: whenever she exits God's courtroom, a clerk
"call[s]out to the people there to lower their eyes" (83) until she passes. Even though she
has the power of redemption, she runs her errands in Paradise only when chaperoned by
her little brother Ibrahim:

F atima then said to her brother Ibrahim (blessings on him) "Here is
the man" [Ibn ul Qarih]. "Hang on to my horse" said he, and the

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horses of the company proceeded to pass through the throng, all
nations and kindreds making way for them; and when the press
became too close, they flew into the air, with me hanging on to the
horse. (84)
During her intercession to Muhammad on behalf of Ibn ul Qarih, Fatima does not fly
alone with the latter: she first introduces him to her brother, and then they all fly together
to see Muhammad. Reflecting the Abbassid segregation of the sexes, Ibn ul Qarih flies
hanging flom Ibrahim's horse, not F atima's.

As in the eighth and ninth century chronicles of Tabari, Ibn Saad, and Ibn
Hisharn, in al Ma'arri's afterlife, Fatima and Khadija are trapped within the patriarchal
roles of motherhood and wifehood: F atirna as wife of Ali and mother of the two martyrs
Hassan and Hussein, and Khadija as the Mother of the Believers and the mother of
Muhammad's sons who died in infancy. Describing the House of the Prophet in the
afterlife, Ibn ul Qarih observes:

There was among them Ali the son of Husein and his two sons
Muharrnnad and laid with others of the righteous and devout.
With F atima (peace be upon her) was another woman equal to her
in honor and dignity. They were told in answer to their enquiry
that it was Khadijah the daughter of Khuwailid Ibn Asad Ibn Abdel
Uzza. With her were youths riding on horses of light, and they
were told they were Abdallah, Qasim, Tayyib, and Tahir, and
Ibrahim--sons of the Blessed Prophet. (84)

On the Day of Reckoning, Ibn ul Qarih is saved flom hell only because Fatima
has interceded with Muhammad on his behalf. The idea that Fatima could save someone
flom the flames of hell through intercession with her father is a common belief among
the Shi'ah, who also believe that her two sons Hassan and Hussein murdered by the

Umayyad, are the only legitimate heirs to Muhammad's temporal and spiritual heritage.

The idea that F atima would not save those who murdered her children and grandchildren

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was not unheard of in Abbasid society. About two centuries before a1 Ma'arri, the first
chronicler of Islamic history Tabari Abu Djafar Muhammad ben Djarir Ben Yez‘id (839-
923) reports a story Mousa Ibn 'Habib told him after the murder of Zaid: 8

A woman [told him] the following story: "On the night of the third

day following Zaid's death, I saw in a dream a group of persons

dressed in bright clothes and descending flom the heavens who

were gathered around Zaid, beating their faces, weeping and

screaming, like our women do when they gather to cry over a dead

person. One of them wearing a splendid garment shouted: 'O Zaid,

they have killed you! O Zaid, they sent you to the gallows and

exposed your nakedness! Definitely, they won't have the

intercession of your grandfather on the Day of Resurrectionl' I

asked then one of her companions who that woman was. She told

me: 'It is Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, the wife of 'Ali.'"

(Chronique 5/6: 264-65)
In al Ma'arri's divine company, the preeminence of the House of the Prophet in the
afterlife stands for the restoration of their divine rights. This is why on the Day of
Resurrection, only Muhammad's first wife, his daughter Fatima, his five sons who died in
‘ infancy (Qassim, Tahar, Tayyib, Abdallah, and Ibrafim), his grandson Hussein,9 his great
great-grand sons Muhammad and laid, his son-in-law Ali, his paternal uncle Hamza who
died a martyr at the Battle of Uhud, and the Elect (other chosen members of his family),
go back and forth between Heaven and God's courtyard, where the resurrected are
fearfully waiting God's judgement.

In this afterlife family reunion, Muhammad's other wives are all absent, including
his favorite wife Aisha. Also striking is the absence of his other daughters florn Khadija:
Zeineb and Ruqayya and Um Kolthum. If these three daughters are absent, it is because
flom a Shi'i standpoint only the sons of Fatima and All are Muhammad's legitimate heirs.

Besides, Zeineb and Ruqayya were both manied to Uthman Ibn Affan (644-56), 10 the

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third Muslim Caliph who gave power to his kinsman Mu'awiya Ibn Abi Sufyan, the
founder of the Umayyad dynasty, who fought against Ali in the Battle of Siffin, and
persecuted the Prophet's grandsons Hassan and Hussein.

It is also the Elect who introduce Ibn ul Qarih to Fatima, Ali, and Hamza.
Describing the "Elect," Ibn ul Qarih states that they are "many members of the family of
Abu Talib of both sexes, who had never touched wine or known doing wrong" (83). It is
significant here that Muhammad's family is referred to as the "family of Abu Talib," who
is Muhammad's uncle and father of Ali, and not as "the family of Abdul Muttalib," after
his paternal grandfather, or "Beni Hashim," after the name of his clan. This is significant
because the Abbasid rulers also presented themselves as the legitimate blood heirs to
Muhammad's legacy. As a matter of fact, the Abbasid--who are the descendants of
Muhammad's paternal uncle al 'Abbas son of Abdul Muttlalib son of Hashim--denied the
political legitimacy of Ali Ibn Abi Talib through his marriage to Fatima. Even though he
was the father of Muhammad's only two grandsons (Hassan and Hussein), Ali and his
descendants were denied legitimacy because inheritance, the Beni Abbas claimed,
follows the father's line not the mother's. In his Chronicle, Tabari reports a
correspondence between the Abbasid ruler Abu Ja'far al Mansur and Muhammad Ibn
Abdallah (one of the descendants of Ali) where both lay claim to Muhammad's spiritual
and temporal heritage. In the letter where he responds to the Abbasid ruler's promise to
grant him his royal pardon "were he to give up his weapons and surrender" (344),
Muhammad Ibn Abdallah writes:

You are offering me the aman ("pardon") whereas it is me
who should give it to you, because I am the legitimate Imam and

you are the rebel. We are the descendants of the Prophet, and we
have inherited the Irnamat; because the prophet, on his deathbed,

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left a daughter, who is Fatima, and a nephew, who is 'Ali, and we
are his heirs. If the right to power is based on heritage, Fatima is
the principal heiress; if it is founded on testamentary disposition, it
is 'Ali who has been designated the successor. What are your titles
and your rights since the descendants of the Prophet are still
living? You are the descendants of 'Abbas, you used our family
name to steal power and it is in the name of Muhammad that you
have conducted your propaganda and found partisans [. . .] If you
are seeking your nobility titles in the history of Islam, I will tell
you that 'Ali was the first of all men to adopt the Islamic religion
[...] Your father 'Abbas was among those who embraced Islam
under constraint, he was aflaid of the sword of 'Ali, who made him
a prisoner at the Battle of Bedr. It is the same for our nobility titles
in the era of paganism, where we occupied the first rank; for the
chieftancy of the Quraischite of Mecca belonged to Abdou'l
Mottalib and after him Abu Talib [...] 'Abbas had never been
found a chief by two people.

[...] As for the nobility on the women's side [...] we
descend flom Khadija bint Khowailid and Fatima, daughter of the
Apostle of God. The mother of 'Hassan ibn 'I-Iassan was Fatima
bint Hussein, and my own mother was Um Is'haq bint Talha. All
of you, old and young, are born from slave women (the mother of
Mansour was a slave called Salama), and God knows what these
women did before they belonged to your fathers. The kinship
between you and Beni Hashim that you are boasting about exists
only on your father's side, whereas we are related to the Beni
Haschim on both our maternal and paternal side. (Tabari,
Chronique 5/6: 344-45)

To this claim, Al Mansfir responds that the descendants of al 'Abbas are the real heirs
because inheritance has always been patrilineal, not matrilineal:

Know at first that the nobility of origins does not get
transmitted by women, but through men; it is the fathers and the
uncles that we boast about; because God placed the uncle in the
same rank as the father [. . .] Your kinship to the Prophet derives
flom Fatima, his daughter. The daughters, mind you, receive only
a small part of the paternal heritage, as for the temporal and
spiritual power, they don't inherit any part of it, and consequently,
they carurot transmit it to their descendants...

The Prophet addressed his four uncles, two of whom,
Abbas and Hamza, welcomed his predication and believed in his
mission; the two others, your ancestor Abu Talib and Abu Lahab,
refused to believe. In addition, 'Abbas was the uncle of the
Prophet, and 'Ali was only his cousin.

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When you say that Haschim is your ancestor on both the
paternal and maternal side whereas we are his descendants only
flom the paternal side, know that we are content with the nobility
of the Origins the Prophet himself had; the nobility of the fathers
are enough, that of women is insignificant. (346-47)
Thus, the absence on the Day of Reckoning of Beni al 'Abbas and the political power
granted to Ali, his son Hussein, his grandson Ali, and his two great grandsons
Muhammad and laid (84) reflect the Shi'i belief that only All and his two sons Hussein
and Hassan are Muhammad's legitimate heirs.
Even though Muhammad's favorite wife Aisha is excluded flom a1 Ma'arri's Shi'i
afterlife, there is a hint concerning her alleged affair with Safwan ben el Mo'attal.ll In
Paradise, Ibn ul Qarih meets the Prophet's poet Hassan Ibn Thabit, who tells him that he
entered heaven because he married Sirin, the sister of Maryam the Copt, Muhammad's
only concubine and mother of his son Ibrahim. Even though Ibn Thabit was flogged with
the slave Mistah for spreading lies about Aisha's reputation, Muhammad saved him
because of the blood ties between the poet's son Abdul Rahman and the Prophet's own
son Ibrahim:
The Prophet interceded for al A'asha after he had satirised him on
many occasions. No man more generous than he was ever heard
of, for when [I did shame] he flogged me together with my fliend
Mistah, and then gave me the sister of Maryam,--by whom I had
my son Abdul Rahman,--she being the aunt of Ibrahim (The
Prophet's son by Maryam). (66)

The story of Ibn Thabit's salvation shows that redemption is bestowed rather than earned.

By making hypocrites like Ibn Thabit or profligate poets like al A'asha enter Paradise

because of their kinship with the House of the Prophet or Muhammad's generosity, al

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Ma'arri is critiquing the Shi'i belief in the absolute power of the House of the Prophet on
the Day of Reckoning.

In this Shi'i paradise, Aisha is excluded not only because of her alleged affair with
Safwan ben el Mo'attal, but also because she sided with Mu'awiya (founder of the
Umayyad dynasty) and fought against Ali--the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law--in the
Battle of the Camel. Aisha's participation in the first war where Muslim blood was shed
caused many to blame her for creating al fitna ("chaos")12 between Muslims. Besides
this, the Shi'iah never forgot how she refused to let the corpse of Hassan be buried near
the tomb of the Prophet. Aisha claimed that the land where Muhammad's body was
buried belonged to her. Because of this the body of Hassan "was buried in the cemetery
of Baqi" (Tabari, Chronique 5/6: 17), not near his grandfather.

A1 Ma'arri's divine comedy shows a departure flom the earlier discourses on the
House of the Prophet. For instance, the absence of the nine wivesl3 Muhammad took
after Khadija's death does not merely reflect the Shi'i belief that only the Prophet's
descendants flom Fatima (daughter of Khadij a) are his true legitimate heirs, but more
importantly al Ma'arri's own opposition and rejection of the institution of polygamy. In
his invention of the House of the Prophet as a monogamous household, a1 Ma'arri makes
Ibrahim appear, not with his real mother, Muhammad's concubine Maryam the Copt, but
with Muhammad's first wife Khadija and her sons Abdallah, Qasim, Tayyib, and Tahir
(84). Many Arab critics present a1 Ma'arri as a woman haterl4 for his portrayal of women
in his Luzumiat as snakes (II: 81), irrational (I: 196, 298) and dangerous seductive
creatures (I: 63). It is true that al Ma'arri has often expressed his hatred for women and

procreation,15 but he is also the Abbasid poet who has criticized polygamy and attacked

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Islam's holy wars for causing the enslavement and dishonoring of Arab women. In the
Luzumiat, a1 Ma'arri makes sarcastic remarks about polygamous men: "Be content with
the fourth of me he told his first wife after taking three others/ He rewards her if little
satisfies her and stones her if she takes a lover/ He who marries two women can never
reach the fifth or fourth of justice's pathway" (II: 140). Al Ma'arri's criticism of
polygamy is not unheard of in Abbasid times. As Ahmed demonstrates in Women and
Gender in Islam, the Qarmatians, for instance, challenged the views of establishment
Islam by rejecting polygamy, concubinage, and the wearing of the veil (66). In the
Luzumiat, al Ma'ani attacks all religions for turning people into "the bitterest of enemies"
and wonders whether it "was not the Prophets' teachings, which permitted the
enslavement and dishonoring of women among Arabs" (I: 228). This is quite subversive
given the fact that Muhammad's concubine, Maryam the Copt, was given to him as a gift.
Muhammad's slave Selma was also a war captive. She was enslaved when her father
Malik, head of the Beni Ghatafan rebelled against Islam. Muhammad gave her as a gift
to Aisha, who later emancipated her.

Even though The Epistle of Forgiveness reproduces Muslim beliefs in the afterlife
and in particular Shi'i beliefs in the divine authority and legitimacy of the House of the
Prophet, a1 Ma'ani's description of resurrection and the House of the Prophet's absolute
power of redemption borders on sarcasm and cynicism. An overview of The Epistle of
Forgiveness shows that the House of the Prophet is a metaphor for social corruption and
a satire of the absolute power of the Abbasid ruler. A corrupt and degenerate poet in his
lifetime, Ibn ul Qarih gains access to heaven, not through his good deeds, but thanks to

his pistons ("personal acquaintances") and his talent as a panegyric poet. On the Day of

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Reckoning, Ibn ul Qarih loses his Repentance Pass and tries to enter Paradise by bribing
the angels guarding its gates with praise poetry. Plagiarizing the poetry of Irnru' ul Qais,
he composes verses "in praise of Radwan in the metre of the well-known verse: 'Rise ye
two and let us weep for the memory of Habib and 'Irfan'" (75), and he substitutes
Radwan, the name of the door-keeper of paradise, for 'Irfan. When Radwan refuses, he
tries to bribe another guardian of heaven called Zufar with "some verses rhyming in his
name in the metre of Labid's verse" (77), but in vain. He then composes a eulogy to
Muhammad's uncle Hamza. Even though he does not save him, Hamza sends him to his
nephew Ali (86) who summons the Judge of Aleppo to testify that Ibn ul Qarih has
repented at the end of his life. Ali turns down his request of salvation and asks him to
wait for his turn to see Muhammad like everyone else (82). But Ibn ul Qarih does not
give up:

I then approached the noble family of the elect and said: "When I

was in the mortal world I wrote a book at the conclusion of which I

added these words: 'The blessing of Allah be upon our Lord

Muhammad the seal of the prophets, and upon his family of elect

and excellent persons.’ These words must give me sanctuary

(hurma) and the right of way (wassila)." (82-3)
As the above passage shows, Ibn ul Qarih wants to enter heaven not through his good
deeds, but through the panegyric poetry he composed on earth in honor of Muhammad
and his family. In Arabic wassila means "instrumen " or "means." The juxtaposition of
the two words wassila and hurma ("sanctuary" and "sacred") reveals how through Ibn ul

Qarih, a1 Ma'arri is denouncing the subjection of the sacred to ideological and political

manipulation during the Abbasid dynasty. Just as the Abassid Caliphs used religion as a

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tool of political legitimacy, Ibn ul Qarih is using religious forrrrula to have access to
heaven.

At the request of Ibn ul Qarih, the Elect--to spare him the hardships of the long
waiting line on Judgment Day--ask Fatima to intercede with the Prophet on his behalf:

This company to whom I appealed said to Fatima: "This is
a sincere client of ours whose repentance has been accepted and
who is certainly among the dwellers in Paradise, and he begged us
to introduce him to you (peace be upon you) in order to be relieved
flom the horrors of waiting and to gain his wish of proceeding into
Paradise without delay. " (84)

When F atirna reached the Prophet she stopped. He asks her
"Who is this stranger?" She answers: "He is a man who has been
interceded for by so and so [...] a number of righteous irnarns."
And he said: "Let his works be enquired into." So he enquired into
my works and found them recorded in the Book of Fate. They
were sealed with the mark of repentance, so became my mediator
and I was granted permission to enter. (85)

Ibn ul Qarih's entry into heaven is ludicrous. As he was unable to keep his
balance while crossing the purgatory, Fatima "[orders] one of her handmaidens to help
[him] across" (85) by carrying him piggy-back. At the gate of heaven, Radwan the porter
refuses to let Ibn ul Qarih in because he does not have his Repentance Pass with him. So,
Ibrahim the son of Muhammad comes back to his rescue and kicks him "with a single
motion into Paradise" (87). In heaven, Ibn ul Qarih finally enjoys the blessings of
heaven: fish sporting in pools of honey (29); the rivers of wine, honey, and milk (28); the
jeweled pages (31), heavenly houris springing flom apples and pomegranates (103), etc.

Throughout his divine comedy, Al Ma'ani's irony subverts the political machinery
underlying the House of the Prophet and turns this Muslim symbolic into a metaphor for

injustice and political absolutism. According to Aws Ibn Hajar, one of the poets Ibn ul

Qarih visits in hell, there is no difference between the absolute power of the Abbasid

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King on earth and the House of the Prophet's absolute power of redemption in the
afterlife: "People wickeder than I have entered Paradise, but the distribution of
forgiveness is nothing but a lottery like the distribution of wealth in the world" (136).

An ascetic and a cynic, al Ma'arri engages in the hegemonic discourses of the
Abbasids and the F atimids only to mock them. Rather than deploying the House of the
Prophet for some personal or political ends, al Ma'arri deploys this Muslim symbolic only
to reveal its corruptive power as a tool of ideological manipulation. In his lifetime, a1
Ma'arri opposed not only the corruption of the Abbasid rulers in Baghdad--as his public
humiliation at the salon of al Murtadha attests to--but also the Fatimid regime in Egypt
and Aleppo. Because al Ma'arri was a threat to the Fatimid presence in Aleppo, the
Isma'ili preacher Da'i al Du'ah started a correspondence with al Ma'arri asking him
metaphysical questions and soliciting answers which could be used to give a1 Ma'arri the
reputation of a "heretic" or "unbeliever" (al Garradi 52). A poor, yet proud man of
letters, a1 Ma'arri refused Da'i a1 Du'ah's offer of financial assistance, in the same way he
turned down the other "Fatimid attempts"16 to bribe/control (al Garradi 153) him. In his
Luzumiat, al Ma'arri attacks the Shi'i belief in the "imamah" (clergy), by stating that
"there is no imam, but the mind" (I: 66).

In his nihilistic worldview, al Ma'arri sees mankind as incurably corrupt: only
sterility, castration, or floods can cleanse the world of their evil. Even though he opposes
polygamy and women's enslavement in Islam's holy wars, a1 Ma'arri's reproduction of the
traditional Islamic image of Fatima and Khadija as Mothers of the Believers reflects
Abbasid patriarchal ideology. Finally, if al Ma'ani was able to reject the power politics

underlying the House of the Prophet and live in seclusion, it was because of his double

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privilege of gender and education. During the fifty years he lived in seclusion, a1 Ma'arri
was able to turn his home into a center for learning. It was his students and his maternal
uncle who were providing him with food and other necessities of life (al Bustani 24). An
insider, on account of his gender and education, and an outsider, on account of his class,
a1 Ma'arri's double position in Abbasid society recalls Foucault's statement that power is
also extended to those who are "dominated": "It invests them, is transmitted by them and
through them; it exerts pressure upon them, just as they themselves, in their struggle
against it, resist the grip it has on them (Discipline and Punish 27).

After his humiliation at the Salon of al Murtadha, al Ma'arri became, in his own
words, the inmate of three prisons: his "blindness," "his home," and his body (qtd. in
Taha Husayn, Ma 'a Abi al Ala fi Sijnih 19). Al Ma'arri's imprisonment (except his
blindness) recalls Foucault's claim that punishment is a complex social function" (23), "a
political tactic," and a technology of the "soul" (30) that conceals its "materiality as an
instrument and vector of power" over the body. Hardly a consequence of flee will, the
fifty years that al Ma'ani imposed on himself illustrate the "socia " and political structure
underlying the Abbasid technology of power, which affected not only al Ma'arri's "soul,"
but also his body, his "heart," "thoughts," "will," and "inclinations" (Discipline and

Punish 16).

c) Revisiting al Ma 'arri's Male Paradise: Gender and Politics in Aroussia Naluti’s Al
T awba
Born on the Island of Djerba in 1950, Aroussia Naluti belongs to the first

generation of women novelists who started writing in Arabic in postcolonial Tunisia. A

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one-time teacher of Arabic literature, she is now working in the Tunisian Ministry of
Education. In 1975, she published her first collection of short stories Al Bou'd al Khamis
(The Fifth Dimension). Then, she wrote her first novel Maratij (Locks) in 1985, and
finally Tamas (Borderline) in 1995. Besides this, she has written several scripts for
Tunisian fihn and theater. In 1992, she wrote a readaption of a1 Ma'arri's garden in a play
entitled Al Tawba (The Redemption).17 The play, which consists of ten scenes or
tableaux, was originally written for school-theater. It was meant to present a1 Ma'arri in a
new light to the students of the baccalaureate. In an interview, Naluti confesses that the
play is part of her "unorthodox teaching" of a1 Ma'arri. Through this play, she wanted to
present "a new vision or a new reading" of this Abbasid poet (personal interview, July 17 ,
2001)

In her theatrical readaptation of a1 Ma'arri's divine comedy, only Ali and Fatima
appear: they are introduced not through their names, but through their social status as the
Emir (Al T awba 4: 19) and the Lady (6: 23). In her reconstruction of a1 Ma'arri's divine
comedy, Naluti erases the religious conflict between Shi'i and Sunni Islam and places the
issue of gender outside the paradigm of Islamic religion. By referring to Fatima in terms
of her class, Naluti is recreating her as a social being, subverting thus not only her
patriarchal construction in Islamic tradition as the mother of Hassan and Hussein, but also
Western feminists' tendency to overlook class differences between Muslim women
(Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes" 204). At the same time, by downplaying the theme of
religion and focusing instead on the social differences between the dwellers of Paradise,
Naluti subverts the unitary discourse of Tunisian nationalism and its occlusion of the

social disparities tearing postcolonial Tunisia.

183

Commenting on the political context in which her play was produced, Naluti

states that her rewriting of The Epistle of Forgiveness was a means of escapism:

The reading or rereading of a text in a particular moment is always

a response to some particular circumstances even if we question an

older text. In al Ma'arri's afterlife, the gehannam the damned are

talking about is the gehannam of life and the prison of the

wretched. This arbitrariness that we find in the anti-hero Ibn ul

Qarih--the biggest hypocrite and opportunist--encapsulates all of

the maladies in al Ma'arri's age. The strangest thing is that when

you pursue Ibn ul Qarih, you find him living among us today.

How many Ibn ul Qarihs do we meet everyday? So Ibn ul Qarih,

and al Ma'arri's manipulation of his character could happen at any

time: yesterday, today, or tomorrow. Even if the author is

unconscious when she/he questions an old text, this rereading

stems from a particular ideological flamework. This rereading

reveals a specific reality and searches to express something.

(personal interview, July 17, 2001)
Hence, like, Memissi, Ahmed, and Djebar, Naluti is visiting the past to engage in the
present. In al Ma'arri's text, Naluti finds a vehicle through which she can carry her

Marxist feminist critique of postcolonial Tunisia.

III) Claiming Muhammad's legacy: Djebar's Feminist Reinvention of the House of
the Prophet in Loin de Médine

Born in French colonial Algeria in the town of Cherchell in 1936, Assia Djebar is
the most famous and prolific Francophone female novelist and fihn-maker in the
Maghreb. A historian by training and a novelist by vocation, Djebar is now exiled in the
United States where she teaches at New York University. At nineteen, she wrote her first
novel La Soif, followed by Les Alouettes nai'ves (1967), Poe‘mes de l'Algérie heureuse
(1969), Rouge l'aube (1970),18 Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement (1980), L'Amour,

La Fantasia (1985), Ombre Sultane and A Sister to Scheherazade (1987). Her first film

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was La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua (1977) followed by La Zerda ou les chants
de l’oubli (1982). Her works--Loin de Médine (1991), Vaste est la prison (1995), and Le
Blane de L'Algérie (1996) deal with the rise of the Islamist movement in Algeria and the
seven-year Civil War19 (1992-97), which cost the lives of over 100,000 people. Djebar's
most recent works include Les Nuits de Strasbourg (1997), Oran, Langue morte (1997),
and Ces Voix qui m'assie‘gent (1999). Like so many Algerians, Djebar lost members of
her family and friends in the bloodbath which tore her country in the 19903. In Le Blane
de L'Algérie and Vaste est la prison, two literary tributes for the victims of the Civil War,
Djebar attacks the FLN socialist regime for paving the way for the theocratic discourse of
the Islamists, through their own political absolutism and anti-intellectualism.

In contrast with Djebar's first novel La Soif, which tells the story of a young
woman discovering her sexuality without a hint to the ongoing Algerian Revolution, Loin
de Médine stands out as a piece of politically committed literature. In a 1993 interview
with Clarisse Zimra, Djebar states that Loin de Médine is "a response" ("'When the Past
Answers Our Present': Assia Djebar Talks About Loin de Médine" 126) to the political
situation in her homeland, especially to the bloody riots of October 1988, when young
people took to the streets to contest the price of bread (119). Declaring her engagement in
the political debate and strife shattering Algeria, she notes:

I was derailed by the street riots of October 1988 in Algiers... For
several years I had been an uncomfortable witness of the
fundamentalist rise in public life--particularly among students. I
told myself that the only kind of response of which I was capable,
as a writer, was to go back to the written sources of our history. I
wanted to study, in great detail this specific period that the
fundamentalists were in the process of claiming for themselves,
deforming it in the process flom the standpoint of facts as well as

the standpoint of intent. Médine became this interruption in my
own work, a piece written at one sitting, so to speak, in my

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eagerness to enter this particular debate. In short, Médine was
conceived as a response to specific circumstances. (122-23)

Rather than sitting on the margin of the donrinant discourse of Islamic patriarchy, Djebar
decides to answer back by reconstructing the House of the Prophet flom a woman's
standpoint. Just as the Islamists manipulate the sacred to justify women's seclusion and
oppression, Dj ebar claims this powerfirl Muslim symbolic for the purpose of empowering
Algerian women. Djebar's reinvention of the House of the Prophet through the lens of
écriture feminine/French feminist aesthetics--i.e., as body, voice, and movement--is
triggered by the condition of Algerian women at the end of the 19803 and early 19903.
Claiming an Islamic state, Ali Ben Hadj, the head of the FIS, called for women's veiling
and return home. In an article published in Le Nouvel Observateur on 22 of July 1994,
he stated:
Women's natural place for expression... is the home... In a true
Islamic society, women are not meant to work and the head of state
must allot them a wage. Thus, they will not leave their home but
can devote themselves to the great mission of educating men.
Woman produces [is a productrix of] men; she does not produce
material goods but rather this essential thing that is a Muslim
[male]. (qtd. in Zimra, "Not So Far From Medina: Assia Djebar
Charts' Islam's 'Insupportable Feminist Revolution'" 827)20
a) "She Never Invents: She Recreates ": Djebar's Loin de Médine as a Strategic
Rereading of Islamic Chronicles2 1
In The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault states that "the tools that enable the
historians to carry out [their] work of analysis are partly inherited and partly of their
own making" (3). A historian by training, Djebar's tools in excavating the House of the

Prophet are also "partly inherited and partly [her] own." In the Avant-Propos to her

novel, Djebar acknowledges her indebtedness to the first Muslim historians-Ibn

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Hisham, Ibn Sad, and Tabari--who wrote their chronicles two centuries after
Muhammad's death (5). However, she subverts the sets of rules through which the
discourses on the House of the Prophet are formed. Rather than looking for coherence,
Djebar's archaeology tries to describe "the contradictions" (Foucault Archaeology 151)
and "the different spaces of dissension" (152) in the accounts of these earlier historians.
As she confesses in her interview with Zimra about Loin de Médine, Djebar is filling
those "blanks" ("'When the Past Answers our Presen "' 122) and the
"dangerous/subversive" "anecdotes"/fissures in the accounts of these Muslim chroniclers
(qtd. in Zimra, "Not So Far From Medina" 825).

In opposition to the principles of continuity and closure in Tabari's originary
narrative, Djebar does not provide straightforward answers. In his Chronicle, Tabari
asserts that fear pushed the Queen of Yemen to marry Aswad, the murderer of her
husband. In contrast, Dj ebar dismisses such easy answers and leaves the question
suspended: "Was the Yemenite Queen a submissive victim or a false consenting prey?"
(20) Was F irouz, the man who killed Aswad, the Queen's "lover" or simply her
"cousin?" (24). To such questions, Djebar provides no answers. As she puts it:
"Ambiguity envelops [...] the character of the Yemenite with a lamp. She disappears
into oblivion: without honors, without other commentaries... her candle is gone out:
silence falls on her" (28).

Djebar relies on the traditional methodology of the hadith only to subvert it. For
instance, in Ibn Saad's T abaqat, the hadiths22 about the House of the Prophet are formed
by two parts: first the isnad ("the chain of hadith transmitters") and the text of the hadith

itself. The only Muslim women he mentions as the direct transmitters of the hadith are

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the Mothers of the Believers Aisha and Um Salamah, who besides their prestigious
status as the wives of the Prophet, also came flom the Quraish aristocracy. In Loin de
Médine, Djebar subversively interferes with the "enunciative reordering" (Foucault
Archaeology 56) of the hadith, by giving the power of transmission/enunciation not only
to Muslim women of the upper classes, but also to non-Muslirn women like Kerama the
Christian or the slaves in Muhammad's household like Aisha's slave Barira or
Muhammad's sister-in law-Sirin, who also was a slave before becoming the mother of
Abdul Rahman, the son of the poet Hassan Ibn Thabit.”

In her rereading of Ibn Sad and Ibn Hisham, Djebar appropriates the orality of
the hadith--which is the second source of legislation in Islam after the Qur'an/the written
word of God--to resurrect the voices of these Muslim women who were silenced by the
male Muslim chroniclers. In opposition to Foucault, whose archaeology is not
preoccupied with the hidden meaning of discourse,24 Djebar's archaeology digs up those
feminine voices, which have been repressed by Tabari, Ibn Sad, and Ibn Hisham, so as
to extract meaning. Among the Muslim women she gives voice to are Um Harem, the
maternal aunt of Anas Ibn el Malik (187), the famous hadith transmitter and founder of
the Maliki rite (178), and her sister, Malik's mother, who spent most of her life silent
(187). In reconstructing Malik's aunt as a rdwiya ("hadith transmitter"/"story-teller"),
Djebar is giving this gendered subaltem an equal status to that of the Muslim hadith
scholars Bukhari, Muslim, and Malik. At the same time, in excavating this palirnpsest of
female voices, Dj ebar as historian/rawiya, is including herself--as the gendered subaltem-
-in the very construction of the sacred, turning therefore the orality of the hadith into an

instrument of self-empowerment.

188

In Loin de Médine, Djebar states that her reading of the old Islamic chronicles
triggered in her "the will to engage in Ijtihad"(6).25 Djebar's engagement in the dominant
discourse of Islamic orthodoxy and deployment of the sacred is best expressed in the
quotation she takes flom a1 Ferdousi's The Book of Kings:

I may not have enough strength to reach the top of the fluit-loaded
tree. However, he who sits in the shade of a powerful pahntree

will be safe out of harm's way. Maybe I can find a place on a
lower branch of this cypress tree, which far away extends its shade.

(7)
Even though in the end, Djebar, as the gendered subaltem, can only aspire to occupy the
lower branches of power, by sitting under the shade of the sacred as rdwiya (transmitter)
or mujtahida ("religious scholar"), she can keep herself/other women safe flom the
scorching sun of Islamic orthodoxy. It is flom this marginal position that Djebar is
returning to the House of the Prophet to advance the rights of Muslim women.

In contrast with the sacred persona of Muhammad in the Islamist narrative,
Djebar's Muhammad seems a decentered and split subject. Even though he took many
wives himself, Muhammad the father forbade his cousin and son-in-law Ali to take a
second wife as long as he was married to his daughter Fatima. These internal conflicts
and contradictions not only reveal the "human presence" (210) of Muhammad, but also
his love for his favorite daughter. Muhammad's "No" to Ali was uttered during prayer
time, flom his minbar, in the sacred space of the Mosque:

The sons of Hichem ibn Moghira came to ask my counsel
regarding the marriage of their daughter with Ali ibn Abu Talib. I
am forbidding it [to them]... I shall not allow this marriage, at least
as long as Ali will not have divorced my daughter [prior to it]!
Then and only then will he be allowed to wed their daughter!...
For my own daughter is a part of myself. Whatsoever distresses

her [fait mal, hurts her] distresses me. Whatsoever unsettles her
[bouleverse, shatters her emotionally] unsettles me.

189

0 Muslims, I am not forbidding you what God has

permitted you! Nor am I permitting what God has forbidden you!

No... But should [it happen] that, within the same place/space

[i.e., Ali's home], the daughter of God's Messiah find herself side

by side with the daughter of God's enemy, this I shall never

allow... For I fear that, were this the case, Fatima should find

herself upset [troubled] in her faith. (74)26
Explaining why he is forbidding this marriage, Muhammad argues that Fatima will be
troubled in her faith and the daughter of the Prophet cannot live with Juwayriyah, the
daughter of Abu J ahl, the enemy of God (71). This public refusal is made by Muhammad
the caring father, not the polygamous Prophet. Muhammad's notorious love for his
daughter is being deployed here as a criticism of polygamy and as a model of the father-
daughter relationship.

In her feminist reinvention of The House of the Prophet, Djebar focuses on the
monogamous years in the lives of Muhammad and Ali. Fatima "was the only wife in the
life of her cousin Ali," just like her mother Khadija, "who for twenty-five years was
Muhammad's only wife" (57). Whereas the Islamists and the Algerian Family Code of
1984 present polygamy as the symbol of an Islamic authentic identity, Djebar constructs
Ali and Fatima as a "couple" (69).

Djebar strategically uses Muhammad's public outcry that his daughter is "part of
[him]" and that "whatsoever upsets her upsets [him]" (74) to rewrite a new script for the
father-daughter relationships in present-day Muslim societies. In Arabic, a man who is
"without a male descendant" (58) is called abtar, i.e., "mutilated." Djebar's recreation of
Muhammad's relationship with his daughter constitutes a strategic act of grafting the

daughter (the cut off branch/limb) to the father, and thus the feminine (Fatima) into the

sacred (Muhammad).

190

As a response to the increasing violence against women in Algeria, Djebar creates
a Muhammad who is both tolerant and loving towards his daughters. Djebar reminds the
Islamists that Muhammad did not kill his daughter Zeineb when she reflrsed to convert
out of love for her husband: "His daughter Zeineb did not join Islam for a long time out
of love for her husband, [Abu el 'Ac] whom she preferred to her father, who respected
this love" (Dj ebar 61). When her husband was made captive at the Battle of Badr, Zeineb
sent as a ransom the pearl necklace she inherited flom her mother Khadija. Recognizing
his wife's necklace, Muhammad, according to Tabari, "fleed Abu e1 'Ac, gave him the
money and the necklace and asked him to send Zeineb back to him because she is a
Muslim" (Chronique 3:173). Zeineb went back to her father. Later Abu el 'Ac converted
to Islam and got remarried to Zeineb.

In opposition to the status of Aisha and Fatima as Mothers of the Believers in
Islamic tradition, Djebar emphasizes their status as wives and beloved daughters. Djebar
wonders why Fatima appears in the early Muslim chronicles "only once, she is the
mother of Hassan and Hussein" (62). Announcing her break with the cult of maternity so
dear to the Muslim male chroniclers, Dj ebar declares:

Islam, in its beginning, contented itself with adopting the maternal
values found in Mary, the mother of Jesus (who remained chaste
till his death). The theme of maternity has been so glorified and
celebrated to the fullest in the preceding seven centuries of
Christianity that it seems normal, then, to see it retreat. The
Women-wives, the inheriting daughters rise, in this dawn of Islam,
in a new modernity. (211)
In contrast with the construction of Aisha in the popular memory of the Maghreb

as Muhammad's favorite wife (128), Djebar focuses on her pain "as a child-bride" (275)

when Muhammad married Hafca, the daughter of Umar. Also disruptive is Djebar's

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reading of Tabari's account of Muhammad's repudiation of his wife Sawda. When her
father and two uncles are killed by the Muslim troops, Sawda cries out in pain berating
the Meccan captives and asking them why they were not killed like her father and uncles.
Muhammad repudiates her when he hears that. But to keep her prestige as the Prophet's
wife, she asks him to take her back, stating that in exchange, she will give all her nights
to Aisha (271). Djebar's rereading of Tabari's account of this incident is quite subversive
of the institution of polygamy: "More than the status of 'the favorite spouse,’ that tradition
will later make prevail, it is this status of 'double spouse' that matters at present" (272).
After Sawda's repudiation, Aisha enjoyed for a year the double27 of the affective and
sexual privileges she used to have when she had a co-wife. In contrast with the first
Muslim historians who are bent on reporting every detail about Muhammad's young
spoilt wife, Djebar focuses on Aisha's pain every time her husband takes a new wife and
on her happiness when for a year she had Muhammad exclusively for herself (271). By
focusing on the monogamous moments in Muhammad's lifetime, Djebar unearths and
rewrites monogamy into the heart of the Sacred, undermining thus the Islamist narrative

where Muhammad's life serves as a model to justify polygamy.

b) Looking Through the Lens of Eeriture Feminine: Djebar's Reinvention of the House of
the Prophet as Voice, Body, and Movement

In Loin de Médine, Djebar reconstructs Fatima as the "voice of contestation" and
Aisha as the "voice of transmission" and the "parole feminine" (292). On the death of
Abu Bakr, Umar rudely orders the women to stop weeping because Muhammad forbade
crying over the dead. Aisha disputes his statement: "Umar Ibn e1 Khattab is wrong! He

did not understand" what Muhammad said. "I testify that Muhammad allows us to weep

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over those who leave us." He forbade only screams, fits, and self-mutilations because
they "could disturb the dead" (259). Aisha's testimony is important not just because she
is opposing the second Caliph of Islam, but also because she is standing up to defend her
right to ijtihad, i.e., her right to interpret the hadith. Umar's attempt to stop women flom
crying is presented by Dj ebar as one of the first attempts to stifle women's voices. This is
why Djebar insists that Muhammad did not "scorn singing, and singers, on the
contrary..." (126). According to one of the ra‘wiyates, "the Prophet charged his young
wife Aisha to send Zeineb e1 'Ancariya" (125-26)--a famous singer flom Médina--as a
wedding gift to one of his fliends among the 'Ancar. Djebar's claim that Muhammad
loves singing and singers undermines the Islamist claim that a woman's voice is a awra
("nakedness") that has to be concealed through veiling and seclusion.

In the chapters "Voice" and "She Who Said No to Medina," F atima is defined as
"the well-cherished daughter who said "No." "No," to the people of Medina. "No," all
the time. "No," for six months, till she died (67). After Muhammad's death, Fatima was
denied her father's inheritance including her husband's right of succession. Whereas Ali
was busy with the funeral, the Medinese appointed Abu Bakr as the first Caliph in Islam.
When she protested, Abu Bakr told her that Muhammad once said: "We the Prophets, we
do not leave inheritance" (79). Contesting his literal interpretation of the hadith, Fatima
argued that the hadith was about the gift of prophecy not property. To Abu Bakr's literal
interpretation, Fatima opposes many others: "Seek the content of Fatima because her
content is mine" (83); "Fear what angers Fatima because this will anger me!" (85); and

"He who loves Fatima my daughter loves me" (84). The rejection of Fatima's

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interpretation stands not only for the disinheritance of the Muslim daughter but also for
women's exclusion flom the field of ijtihad. As Dj ebar puts it:

Fatima, the one dispossessed flom her rights, the first one at the

head of a long and interminable procession of daughters whose

disinheritance by fact [as opposed to by law] was often practiced

by brothers, uncles, even sons, was attempting to install herself as

legitimate in order to hold back Islam's unbearable feminist

revolution during the seventh century of the Christian era. (Loin de

Médine 79)
The ensuing political strife between the descendants of Ali and the clan of Beni Umayya
over Muhammad's legacy will lead in the end to the split between Sunni and Shi'i Islam.
Whereas in Islamic tradition the cause of this split is the dispossession of Ali and his two
sons Hassan and Hussein, Djebar represents the disinheritance of the daughter as the
latent or repressed cause for the "Great Fitna," i.e., the split between the Shi'ah and the
Sunna. In her rereading of Tabari, Djebar is challenging not only the Abbasid Sunni
narrative where inheritance is constructed as patrilineal, but also the Shi'i erasure of the
daughters of Fatima and Ali flom Muhammad's legacy. At the same time, Djebar is
departing flom the Shi'i construction of Aisha as Mu'awiya's co-conspirator in the "Great
F itna. " Hence, Djebar's excavation of the House of the Prophet reveals that the first
bloodshed between Muslims was not spilled by Aisha as some of the Shi'is claim, but by
the repression of the feminine.

In her feminist invention of the House of the Prophet, Djebar asserts that in the

first years of Islam, there were no restrictions on the movement of Muhammad's wives
and daughters. For instance, in the Battle of Uhud, Aisha was a nurse. Some people

could still vouch they saw "Aisha, her ankle bracelets jingling, go back and forth to

attend to the wounded and give them water" (272). Also, in the expedition to T aif,

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Muhammad "took with him two of his wives: [Um] Salama and Zeineb" (201).
Women's fleedom to circulate unveiled was lost after the story of the necklace, in which

1.28 During the

Aisha stood accused of having an affair with Safwan ben e1 Mo'atte
expedition against the Beni Mostaliq, Muhammad took with him Aisha. In the moming
as they were leaving, Aisha remembered that she forgot her seashell necklace where she
made her ablutions. She left to look for her necklace without lifting up the curtain of her
palanquin. Thinking she was still inside, the caravan left without her. In the wilderness
of the desert, she met Safwan ben el Mo'attal who helped her join the caravan (278).
Then, the nunors started about her alleged affair with Safwan. Whereas for Memissi the
Medinese Hypocrites attacked the House of the Prophet because of Muhammad's
opposition to slave-prostitution (The Veil and the Male Elite 131, 180), Djebar constructs
this incident as a patriarchal attempt to control and violate the female body through
veiling and seclusion. Although God proved Aisha's innocence and condemned the
slanderers in the Sura of Lights (33:59), in the same Sura, Muhammad's wives were
ordered to wear the hij ab. Commenting on the dire consequences of this incident, Djebar
observes: "The ordeal of this long month of doubt; after [this] each woman of the
Community of Islam, for fourteen centuries, will have in turn to pay her share: a day, a
year, or sometimes the whole of her married life!" (288). Because of this lingering doubt,
the body of the "Muslim woman" has to be cloistered. In Loin de Médine, even though
God spoke in favor of Aisha, there is still doubt lingering over the reputation of the
"Muslim woman." As Sonia Lee puts it, "Not even God's word can bend the law of

Medina" ("Daughters of Hagar: Daughters of Muhammad," Kenneth Harrow, The

Marabout and the Muse 60). In her rereading of the affair of the necklace, Djebar not

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only reinscribes cloistering and veiling as signs of isyan, i.e., defiance of God's will, but
also presents them "as a political technology of the body" (Discipline and Punish 30).
The imposition of seclusion29 on Muhammad's wives illustrates not only how patriarchal
power relations "invest," and "subjugate" the female body, but also how they turn it "into
an object of knowledge" (Discipline and Punish 28). This complicity between
knowledge and patriarchal power is manifest in the production of the Muslim woman's
body as fitna ("chaos") and her voice as awra ("nakednes"). The doubt that still exists in
the "Muslim man's" heart over Aisha's/"the Muslim woman's purity reveals a more
"profound" subjugation than the Muslim woman's corporeal confinement: it is the
patriarchal subjugation of the Muslim man's "soul" (Discipline and Punish 30). For
Dj ebar, patriarchy is a relation of power that dominates not only women's bodies, but also
men's souls. Reversing the Christian and Sufi metaphor where the soul is trapped in the
physical body, Djebar shows a la Foucault that it is "the soul [that irnprisons] the body"
(30).

As a response to Islamic patriarchy's control of the female body, in Loin de
Médine Djebar strategically rewrites the feminine within the sacred and resexualizes the
body of the Mothers of the Believers. Revisiting Tabari's account of the last days of
Muhammad's life, Djebar states that it is in the "embrace" (289) of Aisha that the Prophet
has chosen to die. And that it was in Aisha's bedroom (13) that he was buried. Djebar
insists that there were no walls between the Mosque and the headquarters of

Muhammad's wives.30

As a sexualized and female space, Aisha's bedroom is
reconstructed by Djebar as the locus of the sacred. Because he is too weak to clean his

own teeth, Aisha used to chew the souak with her own teeth before giving it to him. "'In

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that last moment,‘ said Aisha proudly in one of her hadiths, 'we exchanged our salivas'"
(11). Against Islamic traditional construction of Aisha as the asexual Mother of the
Believers, Djebar focuses on the life of sterility and sexual repression she has been
condemned to at the age of nineteen: "She was only nineteen when Muhammad died...
Her honorific title [Mother of the Believers] caused her to be devoted to a life of sterility"
(43).

The torture of a satirist-poetess unnamed by Tabari at the hands of Muhadjir Ibn
Omayya, the executioner, provides another example of how power relations invest the
female body. In the Wars of the Ridda,31 a poetess flom the tribe of Beni Kinda wrote
many satires against the Prophet. As a punishment, Mouhadjir pulled out her teeth and
cut off her hands:

She does not breathe, she doesn't utter one scream. "Why my

teeth?" She wonders, her head spinning, about to faint [. . .] As she

falls down, she understands: her voice will whistle, her voice will

squeak, her voice won't sing any of the stanzas, which at that very

moment, were pressing up in her heart, as warm as the blood she

was spitting. (121)
In describing the brutal unvoicing and dismembering of the poetess's hands, Djebar seeks
to illustrate Islamic patriarchy's control of the female body through the exercise of brutal
force. The predicament of the poetess of Beni Kinda provides a perfect example of what
Foucault calls the "political technology of the body" (26), which aims at dominating and
subjugating the body, through the brute exercise of power. Djebar's grafting of this
poetess's tongue, turns out to be a prophetic reading of ”Algeria's present, where
intellectual women and men are having their throats cut by the F IS and the GIA.

In response to the claim of the FIS leaders that a woman's place is the home,

Dj ebar reconstructs the women of Islam on the road. In the "avant-propos," Dj ebar states

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that she wants to resurrect "women in movement," whether "geographically or
symbolically" (5). Djebar's women are either by themselves in the desert, in exile,
runaways, in the Mosque, fighting in battles, or wandering in the desert. For instance,
Um Salama, the fifth spouse of Muhammad, used to go to the Safa Hill where she would
cry over the departure of her first husband Abu Salama, who migrated with Muhammad
to Médina (53). Likewise, Muhammad's daughter Ruqayya and two of his wives, Um
Habiba and Sawda, exiled themselves to Abyssinia to avoid the persecution of Quraish
(215). Running away flom her family in Mecca, the fifteen-year old Um Kolthum--the
half-sister of Uthman Ibn Affan, the third Caliph in Islam--crossed the desert to join the
Muslims in Medina (159).

It was also in the public and sacred space of the Mosque that Fatima claimed her
father's legacy. Addressing the Medinese during prayer time, she defiantly reprimands
them for witnessing her disinheritance in silence: "Tell me O Believers, what has delayed
you flom coming to my rescue? What takes possession of you to the extent that you
watch calmly my dispossession?" "Have you forgotten the Prophet when he said that
every person is perpetuated in his children?" (82).

Also, in her resurrection of Esma the daughter of Abu Bakrnwho is known in
Islamic tradition "as the woman with the two belts" because she used to smuggle food to
a cave where Muhammad and her father were hiding flom Quraish--Djebar mentions that
Esma was pregnant and crossing the desert by herself when she was bringing food to the
Prophet and Abu Bakr (51). In "'Filles d'Agar,’ Dit-Elle," Djebar brings Ishmael's mother
back to life. Abandoned by Abraham, Hagar--whose Arabic name Hajar32 means exile--

is the first woman in Arabia to be denied the legitimate/sacred line. Looking for water,

198

the wandering mother goes back and forth between Safa and Merwa. Almost "naked"
(302), Hagar is dancing and praying under the watchful "eye of the sun"
(303). Her body seems possessed by an "uncontrollable" and flenetic dance (302-03).
To appease the "fever" of the "maternal body," Ishmael digs into the sand and the holy
water of zem-zem springs forth. In this scene, Djebar is reinscribing the female body into
one of the founding myths of Islam and Arab nationalism. After all, it is the movement
of the female body that millions of Muslim pilgrims celebrate during al Hajj when they
reenact Hagar's wanderings between Safa and Merwa. In this rereading of the story of
Hagar, the holy water of zem-zem is rewritten as an amniotic miracle that comes about
through Hagar's prayer through her body. This reinscription of the amniotic into the heart
of the sacred is also evident in Djebar's presentation of the venerated persona of Aisha33
as ma' al hayat (the water of life) (264). By including the female body as part of the
foundational myths of Islam, Djebar like the mystical poet Ibn Arabi, is emphasizing the
feminine dimension of the divine. Thus, in Djebar's novel, female agency is located not
only on the level of the symbolic--through her engagement with the patriarchal discourse
of Islamic orthodoxy--but also on the transgressive site of the semiotic. The novel ends
with a symphony of women's voices and on a note that emphasizes the pre-symbolic
relation between mother and child (Hagar and Ishmael) and the redemptive powers of the
holy water of zem-zem, which Djebar reconstructs along the lines of what Kristeva calls

the "chora."

e) The House of the Pr0phet and the Question of Female Agency in Loin de Médine and

The Satanic Verses

199

In contrast with the death of the author in Foucault's archaeology, Djebar presents
herself as a committed author. In her interview with Zimra, Djebar confesses that her
novel is triggered not only by the street riots in Algeria, but also by the Rushdie Affair:

Hence, I date this unexpected swerve in the level road that was my
writing flom the fall of 1988. As it so happened, four months after
the street riots in my country, what became known as "the Rushdie
affair" started. I was in London at the time and much racked by it
all. I understood that I no longer had the luxury of choice. Thus
Médine is, above all, a piece of committed literature with regards
to actual events in contemporary Algeria. ("'When the Past
Answers Our Present'" 123)
Dj ebar's statement that her novel is a response to "the Rushdie affair" invites us to
compare Djebar's feminist invention of the House of the Prophet with Salman Rushdie's
postmodern construction of this Muslim symbolic in The Satanic Verses.

One of the central issues that led to the fatwa34 against Rushdie is his
desacrelization of the House of the Prophet. In his postmodern rejection of all monologic
discourses, Rushdie undermines the religious authority of this Muslim symbolic by
turning it into a brothel. In The Satanic Verses, the House of the Prophet is sullied
morally and spatially. On the ethical level, the twelve whores working in The Curtain
(name of the brothel) have assumed the identities of the twelve wives of the Prophet.
Under the prostitutes' insistence, Baal, the pimp-poet, accepts the role of "husband of the
wives of the former businessman, Mahound" (383). Spatially, it is as an anti-mosque
(383) or anti-Qaaba that Rushdie presents The Curtain:

So in the Prophet's absence, the men of J ahiliya flocked to The
Curtain, which experienced a three hundred per cent increase in
business. For obvious reasons it was not politic to form a queue in
the street, and so many days a line of men curled around the
innermost courtyard of the brothel, rotation about its centrally

positioned Fountain of Love much as pilgrims rotated for other
reasons around the ancient Black Stone. (381)

200

In The Satanic Verses, the equation between the House of the Prophet (sacred) and The
Curtain (profane) has a double function: first to denounce women's seclusion and second
to undermine the institution of polygamy. In Arabic the word hijab means not only the
word "curtain," but also the "veil." In the Qur'an, the Sura of the Veil designates the
House of the Prophet as a space that is visually and morally forbidden:35

0 ye who Believe! Enter not the dwellings of the Prophet for a

meal without waiting for the proper time, unless permission be

granted you. But if ye are invited, enter, and, when your meal is

ended, then disperse. Linger not for conversation. For that would

cause annoyance to the Prophet, and he would be shy of (asking)

you (to go); but Allah is not shy of the truth. And when ye ask of

them (the wives of the Prophet) anything, ask it of them flom

behind a curtain. That is purer for your hearts and for heir hearts.

(Sura 33, Verse 53)
Before dying Muhammad has decreed that none of his wives should marry after him. As
a result, the "Mothers of the Believers" became sexually forbidden (muharramat).
Today, this Sura is often quoted to justify women's seclusion and oppression. According
to Merrrissi, the wearing of the veil in early Islam was the demarcating line between flee
women and slaves. It is the hypocrites who pushed Muhammad to accept "a slave-
holding solution" (The Veil and the Male Elite 178), whereby only flee women had to
wear the veil and thus be protected; the slaves remained unveiled and subjected to
ta 'arrudh i.e., "sexual abuse." From this perspective, Rushdie's equation between the
brothel and the House of the prophet implies that far flom being a sign of respectability,

the veil stands for the degradation of Muslim women; both the secluded woman and the

prostitute are enslaved by patriarchy.

201

The parallel between the House of the Prophet and The Curtain reveals a parallel
between the institution of polygamy in Islam and the practice of polyandry in Jahilia.
When he returns to J ahilia, Mahound closes down the brothels and arrests the prostitutes
(390) because they are committing what the Qur'an views as zina ("fornication"), a sin
punishable by flogging if the "culprit" is single, and stoning to death if married. If
Islamic tradition constructs J ahilia as pre-culture and dismisses it as a period of moral
decadence, it is because women's sexual self-determination was asserted in pre-Islarnic
Arabia. All those practices in which a woman could choose more than one sexual partner
are condemned by orthodox Islam as zina. Therefore, in equating polygamy (The House
of the Prophet) with polyandry (The Curtain), Rushdie is deconstructing the institution of
polygamy by basing it on zina.

Whereas in The Satanic Verses, Rushdie creates a dichotomy between a
monologic and male-centered Islam and a polyphonic gender-transgressive J ahilia,
Djebar creates the feminine and the polyphonic at the heart of the sacred. In resurrecting
the daughters of Islam, Djebar is creating a symphony of transgressive female voices
inside the house of Islam. Rushdie's novel raises many questions in regard of Muslim
women's agency: What are the political consequences of criticizing Islamic patriarchy by
deploying the language of blasphemy and by ascribing gender-transgressive agency to the
profane (Jahilia)? How can the "Muslim woman" speak in a text that already erases her
agency?

While not denying the subversive power of irony, my reading of the history of
Islamic feminism makes me question the universalist claim under Bakhtin's3’6 assertion

that parody is the only effective site of critique. For Muslim activists, Rushdie's

202

postmodern equation of the House of the Prophet with a brothel as well as his erasure of
female agency within an Islamic symbolic order are quite disabling. In locating female
agency within the J ahilia period, Rushdie tends to endorse the Islamist narrative where
the issue of women's rights is quickly dismissed as either kufi'ljahl37 "un-
Islamic"/"ignorance") or an instance of cultural imperialism. For instance, in the year
2000, Said Saadi, the Moroccan. Secretary of State for Social Affairs, was accused of
apostasy because he wanted to reform the Mudawana (the Moroccan family/Shari'a
laws).38 Because he received some financial aid flom the United Nations Development
Program to carry out his reforms, the Islamists inside Le Parti de la Justice et du
Développement (PJD) launched a campaign throughout the country denouncing his
reformist project as a new form of "colonization financed by the Occident and the
Zionists" (Benchemsi 36).

It is also flom a Westem perspective that Rushdie embraces the social and sexual
rights of Muslim women. In The Satanic Verses, Rushdie traces women's seclusion to
the birth of Islam. However, recent research indicates that veiling was apparently not
introduced into Arabia by Muhammad, but already existed among the Jewish and
Christian populations. As Ahmed has demonstrated in Women and Gender in Islam,
Islam had brought no radical changes to the existing lifestyles in Arabia. It is Rushdie's
position as outsider that makes him see Islamic civilization as disbarred flom that pre-
Islamic Middle Eastern past. In contrast with Rushdie, who leaves no room for the
agency of the Muslim women in his self-Orientalist construction of the House of the
Prophet, Dj ebar reinvents this powerful symbolic flom the exclusive standpoint of

Muslim women (Zimra, "'When the Past Answers Our Present'" 124).

203

In his postmodern reading of the Prophet's House, Rushdie creates a scene where
a fifteen-year old prostitute tries to turn on the grocer Musa by assuming the identity of
Muhammad's young wife Aisha:

The fifteen-year old whispered something in the grocer's car. At
once a light began to shine in his eyes. "Tell me everything," he
begged. "Your childhood, your favorite toys, Solomon's-horses
and the rest, tell me how you played the tambourine and the
Prophet came to watch." She told him, and then he asked about
her deflowering at the age of twelve, and she told him that, and
afterwards he paid double the normal fee, because "it's been the
best time of my life." "We'll have to be careful of heart
conditions," the Madam said to Baal [the pimp]. (380)

Blotting out the historical context where early marriages were a common practice
among Muslims, Jews and Christians alike, Rushdie reconstructs Muhammad's love for
his young wife Aisha as a pedophiliac desire, leaving no chance for Muslim .women to
empower themselves by claiming Muhammad's legendary love for his wife. In contrast,
in Loin de Médine, Djebar displays a subversive reading of Aisha's childhood. The fairy
tales that Aisha used to tell her playmates are turned into a symbol of women's voices
(300). Aisha was also on the swing playing with her friends when her Mother Um
Rouman calls her in to dress her up for her betrothal to Muhammad (270). The mother's
call for her daughter to go inside-~as Arab customs required the brides to do--marks the
beginning of Aisha's seclusion once she has become a wife, later to become the Mother
of the Believers. This leads us to examine the dichotomies Djebar creates between

spiritual and political Islam on the one hand and Arab culture and Islam on the other

hand.

d) Beyond the Ghetto of Cultural Essentialism

204

Like Memissi and Ahmed, Djebar creates a strategic dichotomy between
political/orthodox Islam and spiritual Islam. Whereas Umar, Khalid Ibn el Walid, and
Mouhadjir stand for a political and violent Islam, Muhammad and Abu Bakr represent a
more tolerant and humane version of Islam. Upon hearing what happened to the poetess
of Beni Kinda, Abu Bakr sends a letter of reprimand to Mouhadjir in which he states:
"Neither a Muslim nor an apostate, she could, by the poetic power which is her weapon,
choose whomever she wanted to be a victim of her satires" (122-23). It is on the basis of
this spiritual Islam that Muslim feminists like Menrissi, Djebar, and Ahmed build their
feminist agendas in Morocco, Algerian, and Egypt.

In contrast with her other novels (notably, Fantasia and A Sister to
Scheherazade), in Loin de Médine, Djebar presents an essentialized and a homogenous
view of Arab culture. Commenting on the consequences of the story of Aisha's necklace,
she observes: "Each woman of the Community of Islam, for fourteen centuries, will have
[to pay the price] a day, a year, or sometimes the whole of her manied life!" (288).
Djebar's "mummification" (Bhabha 78) of Arab culture might stern out of a position of
political insurgency against the patriarchal oppression of women in Civil War Algeria,
however, by ignoring the heterogeneity of Islamic tradition, and its constant change
through time, Djebar not only dehistoricizes Arabic/Islamic culture, but also falls within
the ahistorical time of the Islamist/Orientalist narrative. Djebar's ambivalence embodies
the "doubled vision" (Technologies of Gender 10) of the feminist subject, who, according
to de Lauretis, inhabits a space that is inside/outside the dominant ideology.

Dj ebar's construction of the "Muslim woman" as voice and her presentation of the

veil as a fixed negative signifier also recall the logocentric division between

205

silence/speech in French écriture féminine. Even more problematic are Djebar's views on
the Arabic language. In her interview with Zimra, Djebar states that she refirses to
translate Loin de Médine into Arabic and that she will allow its translation only if she can
"work right along with the translators" (127). Because of the religious conventions in
Arabic, which put a lot of constraints on the author, she prefers to write in the secular and
"neutral mode" of the French language" (129). Comparing Arabic to the status of Latin
in Medieval Europe, she writes:

I am not obliged to give my personal opinions in my writing and

that could not be achieved without my using French, by tradition

the language of laicity. This is not to imply that Arabic is

deficient, of course. But a staid confonnism has bogged the

language down for the past five or seven centuries. A comparable

situation prevailed in Europe, say, when people had to write in

Latin, Europe's religious language. Médine thus became victory in

the field of fiction. (129)
D] ebar's statement that conforrnism has impeded the grth of Arabic displays a colonial
or Eurocentric evolutionary understanding of time and culture. In equating the status of
Arabic with the status of Latin in Medieval Europe, Djebar places herself into the
"panoptical time" of French culture and language and relegates Arabic language and
culture into what McClintock calls "an anachronistic" space (Imperial Leather 36-7).

Dj ebar's assertion that Arabic has not grown over the last "five or seven centuries"
implies that Arabic as a language and culture is dead (129). This also betrays an implicit
view that associates backwardness and religious fanaticism with Arab culture and
language. Explaining why she refuses to translate her book into Arabic, she states:

Non-Arabic people must realize that, wherever or whoever one is,
even if one is a communist writer writing a communist piece, as

soon as one writes or pronounces the name of the Prophet, one
must immediately follow it with the requisite formula, "may the

206

blessing of God be with him." Were one to omit the formula, it
would immediately signify hostility to Islam. (129)

Two questions surface here: if she refuses to translate her book into Arabic, then how can
Djebar, the politically committed writer,39 reach out for the millions of Algerian women
who are either illiterate or speak only Arabic? Secondly, if Arabic is such an oppressive
language, does this mean that the "Arab Muslim woman" can speak only in English and
French? Dj ebar's statement that Arabic has not grown for seven centuries would seem to
ignore the recent transgressive Arabic literature written by Maghrebian women such as
Naluti's Tamas (Borderline) and Ahlarn Mostghanemi's Memory in the Flesh (Algeria).

In separating Islam flom Arab culture, feminists like Ahmed, Memissi, and
Djebar, are not simply defending Islam against the Christian West, they are also sending
back to the West its recently constructed dichotomy between an oppressive Arab culture
and a tolerant and spiritual Islam. In the 19903, the US. politics of cultural liberalism
made it politically incorrect to slander Muslims and Islam; Arabic as language and
culture, however, remained somewhat suspect. Since the events of 11 September 2001,
this binarism, which was initially situated on the left, has been recuperated and deployed
by the nationalistic war propaganda to justify the war against Afghanistan: "We are not
attacking Islam. Islam is a peacefirl religion! We are not after the Afghan people! We
are after the members of al Qaeda, those foreign Arab terrorists who have destroyed
Afghanistan."

What the excavation of the House of the Prophet reveals is that the script of
Islamic domesticity has never been static or monolithic: it gets changed and reinvented

for various ideological reasons. The four works examined in this chapter reveal four

207

different or contradictory scripts of Islamic domesticity. The novels of Rushdie and
Djebar in particular reveal two contradictory models of domesticity: Whereas in The
Satanic Verses the "Muslim woman" is produced as powerless and degraded by Islam, in
Loin de Médine she is educated, eloquent, powerful, and flee.

Focusing on the enunciative sites flom which these discourses on the House of the
Prophet are made, this chapter reveals that it is the privilege of education and gender that
made al Ma'ani reject the House of the Prophet as a technology of power and live
isolated flom the rest of the world. Similarly, Naluti's emphasis on the class conflict in
her reinvention of the House of the Prophet reflects her double marginalization as a left-
wing gendered subaltem. In contrast with Rushdie, who erases Muslim women's agency
through his reproduction of the universalism underlying Bakhtin's gender-blind theory of
parody, Djebar engages in the dominant discourse of Islamic orthodoxy and claims the
House of the Prophet for the purpose of advancing women's rights in Algerian society.
Eventually, just as the "Muslim woman" has been reinvented for various political
reasons, the model of domesticity underlying the House of the Prophet--as an enclosed
space and a political economy with direct implications on the lives of Muslim women--

has always been an unstable yet powerful signifier.

 

' All of the quotations flom Tabari and Djebar flom the French are mine unless otherwise indicated. 1 am
using the conventional English spelling of the Arabic proper names.

2 Ali Ibn Abi Talib (656-61) is Muhammad's son-in-law and the fourth Caliph in Islam.
3 For more information see Tabari's Chronique 5/6.

‘ Unless otherwise indicated, all the quotations and references in English are flom G. Blackenbury's 1943
translation of The Epistle of Forgiveness. The Quotations flom the Luzumiat are all mine.

5 Risalat al Ghufran is believed to have been written in 1032, but there is no unanimous agreement over
this matter among Arab critics. The dates for the other works are not known.

208

 

6 The Arabic names are spelled exactly as they were in Brackenbury's 1943 translation.

7 According to Ahmed, the Abbasid imported the custom of secluding women flom Byzantium and Iran.
See Women and Gender in Islam (55).

8 He is the son of Ali, son of Hussein, son of Ali, son of Abu Talib killed by the Abbasids. He appears in
al Ma'arri's Paradise with his brother Muhammad along the side of their grandfather Hussein.

9 It is possible that the absence of Hassan is caused by his abdication in the year 41 of the Hijra. After his
murder, his children and all the family of Ali went to live in Mecca with Hussein, who came to symbolize
what is left of Muhammad's household (Tabari, Chronique 5/6: l4, l7).

'0 According to Tabari, Ruqayya married Uthman after she was repudiated by her husband Utba, son of
Abu Lahab (Muhammad's uncle), who fought against the new religion his nephew brought to Arabia.
Muhammad's other daughter Zeineb was also repudiated by Abul 'As because she was the daughter of
Muhammad. However, because he loved her, her husband later converted to Islam, and took back his wife
(Tabari, Chronique 3: 172-73).

” I shall return to the story of the necklace more fully in the section on Djebar. For more information on
this alleged affair see Tabari (Chronique 3: 237-39).

'2 The word fitna also means power of seduction.

'3 Muhammad's other wives are: Sawda (daughter of Zama'a), A'l'sha (daughter of Abu Bakr), Hafsa
(daughter of Umar), Zeineb (daughter of Khozama), Um Salama (daughter of Abu Umayya, son of

Moghira, his cousin), Zeineb bint Jahsh (divorced by his adoptive son Zaid), Juwayriyah (daughter of
'Harith. From the tribe of Beni Mostaliq), Um Habiba (daughter of Abu Sufyan.), Maimunah (his cousin),
Safiyya (a Jewish woman after his expedition to Khaybar). He also took two concubines: Maryam the
Copt (she was given to him as a gift by Moqauqas. She became the mother of Ibrahim) and Rai'hana (a
captive flom the Beni Quraizha).

" See a1 Bustani (1 17-18).

‘5 In his Luzumiat, a1 Ma'arri's misogyny is undeniable. "Castration," he says, "is better than marriage" (11:
47). To keep at bay women's evil, he advises men to teach them "home spinning, weaving, and let aside
writing and reading" (I: 63). However, to present a1 Ma'arri as the epitome of Abbasid misogyny is a one
sided reading of his oeuvre, for there are many passages in the Luzumiat and The Epistle of Forgiveness
where he openly expresses his sympathy towards women. His ambivalent attitude towards women has to
do with his pessimistic view towards life and mankind in general. It is "woman" as the symbol of life and
procreation that he has issues with. Addressing al donia ("life")--which is gendered as female in Arabic-
he writes: "Were you my wife I would divorce thee, but you are my mother, how can I escape thee?" (II:
148) This love/hate relationship is also clear in another verse where he describes himself as a dog barking
over the rotten corpse of life: "Dogs gathering or barking over a corpse, and perhaps am I the meanest of
them all" (1:1 14).

'6 It is reported that the Fatimid Caliph a1 Mustansir bi illah offered him financial assistance, but a1 Ma'arri
refused (al Garradi 39). As the Egyptian scholar Taha Husayn put it: "Glory and benefit were never
inaccessible to him, but he resisted their temptation," Tajdid dhikra Abi al A16 6"1 ed. (Cairo: Dar a1
Ma'arif, 1963) 155.

'7 Even though the play was produced for Tunisian school-theater, it has never been published. I am using
here a copy of the original script that Aroussia Naluti has written for the play.

209

 

‘8 Djebar's only book in Arabic.

'9 The civil war broke out between the Algerian government and the Islamist groups because of the failure
of the FLN socialist regime, the high unemployment, and the severe economic crisis in the 19803, all of
which led in the end to the victory of the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) in the municipal elections in June
1990. The govermnent arrested the FIS leaders Abbas Madani and Ali Ben Hadj. Even though they were
fleed shortly thereafter, Madani and Ben Hadj were once more sentenced to twelve years in prison in July
1992 because the FIS was about to win the legislative elections. In December 1991, the government
cancelled the elections claiming that the FIS was committing electoral flaud. Both the Kabileans and
women of Algeria took to the streets because they were aflaid that the establishment of an Islamic state
would lead to the Arabization of the country and the loss of women's rights. Then the armed conflict
between the govemment and the Islamists broke out. President Chadhh Ben Jedid resigned and was
replaced by Muhammad Boudhiaf, a former F LN leader, who despite his political reforms, was
assassinated on 29 June 1992. The bloodshed continued till Abdelaziz Bouteflika won the presidential
elections in 1999 and negotiated a truce with the FIS. The government will grant total amnesty for the
Islamists provided that they surrender and give up their weapons. The FIS leaders, notably its leader Abbas
Madani accepted his plan. But the GIA (Armed Islamic Group), an extremist faction which broke away
flom the FIS, is still continuing the war against the "apostate regime" of Bouteflika.

2° Zirnra's translation.

2‘ "She never invents: she recreates." These words originally describe Alsha's power of transmission in
Loin de Médine (300).

22 For more information on the feminist revisions and deployment of the hadith by Memissi, Djebar and
Driss Charaibi, see George Lang's essay: "Jihad, Ijtihad, and Other Dialogical Wars in La Me‘re du
Printemps, Le Harem Politique, and Loin de Médine," in Kenneth Harrow's The Marabout and the Muse.

23 As um walad or "mother of child," a Muslim woman who is a slave can no longer be sold according to
Islamic law.

2‘ For Foucault, "archaeology tries to define not the thoughts, representations, images, themes,
preoccupations, that are concealed or revealed in discourses; but those discourses themselves, those
discourses as practices obeying certain rules [...] [Archaeology] does not seek another, better-hidden
discourse. It refuses to be allegorical (Archaeology 138-39).

25 "Ijtihad" means intellectual effort in matters of religion. It is usually perceived as a male prerogative by
Islamic orthodoxy.

26 I am using Zirnra's translation of this passage in "Not So Far From Medina" (831-32).

27 In his early days in Medina, Muhammad was married to Aisha and Sawda only.

28 A'l'sha was accused of having an affair with Safwan ben el Mo'attel, and not Soffyan ben el Mo'attel as
Djebar wrote in Loin de Médine.

29 In The Veil and the Male Elite, Memissi claims that it is political Islam--i.e., the strong male opposition
to Muhammad's egalitarian projectuwhich led to the imposition of the veil and thus to the failure of
spiritual Islam (179).

3° During Muhammad's lifetime, there was no separation between the apartments of his wives and the
Mosque. It was the Umayyad who destroyed the apartments of Muhammad's wives and turned everything
into a Mosque. Ibn Saad recounts this hadith: " 'Ata a1 Khurasani heard 'Umar Ibn Abi Anas say: I saw the
apartments of the wives of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him, constructed of palm leaf stalks and

210

 

on their doors were curtains of black hair (wool). I was present when the epistle of a1 Walid Ibn 'Abdl al
Malik was read containing the order to take the apartments of the wives of the Prophet, may Allah bless
him, within the Mosque of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him I never saw (people) [more
weeping] than on that day" (Tabaqat 1: 593).

3 ' In the Islamic master narrative, the Wars of the Ridda are those wars waged by the first Caliph Abu Bakr
against the Arabian tribes who declared apostasy and rebelled against Islam after Muhammad's death.

32 The word hijra ("immigration or exile") refers also to the Islamic calender which starts with the date of
Muhammad's exile flom Mecca to Medina.

33 In Arabic, the verb yarwi (present tense) means both to "tell" and to "quench one's thirst." As storyteller
or rawiya, Aisha (whose name means life in Arabic) embodies this duality between transmission/life or
telling/birthing.

3‘ In February 1989, the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa or religious decree
against the author and publishers of The Satanic Verses for blasphemy against Islam.

35 I am using here Fatima Memissi's terminology in The Veil and the Male Elite (93).

36 See "Carnival Ambivalence," The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev and
Voloshinov, ed. Pam Morris (London: Edward Arnold, 1994): 206-07.

37 In Arabic, both the words jahl and jahilia signify ignorance. In the Islamic master narrative, the pre-
Islamic period called Jahilia is constructed as a period of jahl ("ignorance") and pre-culture.

38 Saadi wanted to abolish polygamy and unilateral repudiation, impose divorce courts, and raise marriage
age for women flom 15 to 18.

39 Djebar talks about her political commitment in her interview with Zimra ("When the Past Answers our
Present" 122-23).

211

Conclusion

As this dissertation demonstrates, the "Muslim woman" as a fixed category has
always been invented and produced to serve various political ends, whether in the
discourse of Maghrebian feminism, Female Orientalism, French psychoanalytic
feminism, or Tunisian nationalism. In the writings of the two Muslim activists Merrrissi
and Djebar, the early "Muslim woman" is strategically reinvented as eloquent, flee, and
independent to show that gender equality rather than being a Western import is at the
heart of Islam's egalitarian project. The invention of the "Muslim woman" flom this
theological framework is important because as Azza Karam puts it: "[Any] feminism that
does not justify itself within Islam is bound to be rejected by the rest of society, and is
therefore self-defeating" (Women, Islamists and the State: Contemporary Feminisms in
Egypt 11). The second chapter has examined how the "Muslim woman" has been
instrumental in defining Eberhardt's European identity as the Other Within. In this sense
the Maghreb with its geography and women becomes a technology of space where
European identity is projected and negotiated. Chapter three argues that the construction
of the veiled "Muslim woman" as silent and voiceless in French psychoanalytic feminism
derives not only flom the primacy of the specular in Western metaphysics, but also flom
the same Orientalist impulse which Said discusses in Orientalism. In the writings of
Bourguiba and al Haddad, the invention of the "Tunisian woman" as the mother of the
nation and symbol of the umma is part of the Tunisian nationalist project, which, to resist
the French politics of assimilation, has claimed an authentic pre-colonial Islamic identity.
The last chapter argues that the House of the Prophet has always been deployed as a

technology of power. Because it is constantly being claimed by the hegemonic and

212

marginal groups, the script of domesticity underlying this powerful Muslim symbolic has
always been plural and unstable. Whereas in the Islamist narrative Muhammad's wives
and daughter are veiled and secluded, they are flee and independent in Djebar's feminist
reinvention of this sacred Muslim symbolic.

In a nineteenth century American play Mohammed, The Arabian Prophet: A
Tragedy, in Five Acts (1850),1 the House of the Prophet is reinvented flom a Western
patriarchal point of view, even though its author George H. Miles was claiming to tell
"the naked history" (v) about Muhammad. Whereas Khadija and Fatima are constructed
alter the Victorian model of the angel in the house, Aisha is presented as a castrating
figure because of her excessive sexuality and transgression of women's traditional gender
roles. In this American tragedy, the faithfirl and dutiful wife Khadija dies "victim of
excessive love" (43) for her "Lord" and master Muhammad. In contrast with her
eloquence and rebellion in the narratives of Tabari and Djebar, the nineteenth century
American Fatima is silent, except in those passages where she expresses her love and
loyalty to her husband Ali. When Muhammad asks her to leave her husband whom he
wrongly suspects of having an affair with Aisha, Fatima refuses to listen to her father: she
is a wife first, a daughter second (142).

When Aisha first appears on the stage, she is introduced through her excessive
Oriental sexuality:

Her brushing cheeks, made flagrant by her breath,
Excels the Persian rose,--her ruby lips

Mother unblemished pearls,-upon her brow
Aspiring scorn divided empire holds

With soft attraction, and with every motion
New graces flutter round her buoyant limbs. (89)

213

As soon as Muhammad sees her, he becomes her slave. Umar, who witnesses the
scene says: "She'll govern him!" (90). At the battle of Beder, Fatima stays at home after
bidding farewell to her husband Ali. In contrast with this model of patriarchal
womanhood, Aisha, the "enchantress" (122), is "reveling in blood" (110) and fighting
alongside Ali in the male space of the battlefield. Whenever the Muslim fighters forsake
"hope" and "[embrace] despair," she would encourage men to go back to battle. In the
field of war as well as love, Aisha's manliness constitutes a threat to Ali's masculinity:

In the field of Beder, she follows Ali:

What a pretty sword!

How clean and bright!--bright as thy glancing

Eye.

Ali: Bright!--would it were--

Ayes. What?--out with it!

Ali. Red!

Red as thy coral lips!--Forgive me, lady,

But I have promised to achieve a name,

Ere night, or perish; and the day declines,

And hark!--the contest burns, --whilst I, chained here,

When every Moslem wields a dripping blade,

Flourish this gewgaw! (103)
The conflation of the sexual and war imagery in this passage points to Ali's fear of
emasculation. Whereas the other men's blades are burning and dripping in blood, Ali
feels "chained" and effeminized by Aisha's flirtatious behavior. As her eyes linger on his
sword/phallic weapon, he stops fighting and starts stuttering. Reflecting the nineteenth
century patriarchal construction of war as the symbol of masculinity, Ali runs away flom
Aisha to make a "name" for himself at the battle of Beder.

In this American tragedy, Muhammad's tragic flaw seems to be his inability to

control his home, especially his young wife’s sexuality. He dies poisoned by Aisha and

Sufyan. When Ali and Fatima come to his rescue it is too late, the poison has taken its

214

effect. Muhammad asks forgiveness flom Ali (150) and gives him the Caliphate (152)
instead of Umar. As a punishment for Aisha, Muhammad declares that none of his wives
shall be permitted to marry again after his death: "Henceforth my soul must be thy only
love" (152). Miles adds a footnote in the end of his play explaining that this "punishment
so far as concerned Aisha, was rather formal than real" (166).

In this American invention of the House of the Prophet, Muhammad's affection
for Aisha--which is being reclaimed today by Muslim feminists to advance women's
rights--is dismissed and condemned as lust. When Muhammad asks Aisha why she
betrayed him after he had "showered" her with "the wealth of ransomed cities" (126), she
reiterates the Medieval Christian construction of Muhammad as a lascivious false
prophet:

When man discards

The pearl of chastity, he cannot ask

His wife to treasure it. Ay, make the earth

As full of houris as thy Paradise!

Free all thy slaves, and marry all their wives!

Indulge thy lust-- (125)2
This play reflects not only Medieval Christianity's construction of Muhammad, but more
importantly, it betrays the patriarchal anxieties over women's roles in nineteenth century
America. In this American tragedy, rather than reflecting a more historically realistic
understanding of Muhammad's household, the House of the Prophet--as a domestic space
and a political economy--was instrumental in redefining and negotiating gender identity
in nineteenth century America.

In a like manner, the shift in Bourguiba's construction of the veil as the symbol of

Islamic identity in French colonial Tunisia to his postcolonial construction of a mythical

Punic past where women were unveiled shows that cultures rather than being fixed, are

215

always invented and negotiated in the present. Bourguiba's ability to claim a past and a
future for the Tunisian woman suggests that culture rather than being a given, is primarily
a relation of power. Similarly, the three fatwas against Rushdie, al Haddad, and
Bourguiba's PSC, the public humiliation of al Ma'arri at the literary salon of a1 Murtadha
and his seclusion afterwards for almost half a century show that patriarchy is a relation of
power that subjugates and dominates both men and women. V

As this dissertation demonstrated, the discourses on the "Muslim woman" are
never monolithic: they are different and contradictory at times, depending on the
configurations of power involved in the process of enunciation. In contrast with Said's
claim that in the imperial field "race takes precedence over both class and gender,"3 this
dissertation has demonstrated that class and gender are as important as race in the
construction of the "Muslim woman" in the fields of female Orientalism, nationalism, and
feminism. This dissertation also shows that no discourse is situated outside power; power
visits even the dominated like Al Ma'arri, Djebar, Eberhardt, and a1 Haddad.

This examination of the process of enunciation invites a further investigation of
the reception of these discourses. Who is reading the books of Djebar, Menrissi, and
Rushdie? Why is al Ma'arri almost unknown in the West? Why didn't Loin de Médine
despite its English translation achieve in the West the notoriety of Rushdie's The Satanic
Verses or even Dj ebar's other novels like A Sister to Scheherazade or Women of Algiers?
Of all the rich Medieval Arabic literature, why is The Arabian Nights almost the only
Arabian medieval tale taught in American universities?

First, neither an exotic Oriental text like The Arabian Nights, an autobiography of

an oppressed Muslim woman, nor a tale about Oriental despotism and tyranny, The

216

Epistle of Forgiveness continues to remain absent flom all discussions of Arabic culture
and literature in the Western academia despite its English translation in 1943.4 Second,
as Said puts it, one way of denying a people their humanity is to deny them literary
creativity; hence the scarcity of critical material and courses containing Arabic literary
masterpieces in American universities. Suzanne Pinkney Stetkovych's "Intoxication and
Immortality: Wine and Associated Imagery in a1 Ma'arri's Garden" is one of the very few
articles written in English about The Epistle of Forgiveness. Even though Stetkovych
focuses exclusively on al Ma'arri's mingling of Qur'anic and pre-Islamic poetic imagery--
with no reference at all to the theme of homosexuality in this Abbassid divine comedy--
her article was published in a book called Homoerotieism in Classical Arabic Literature
(1997). This shows--with few exceptions like Najib Mahfuz--that only the "deviant"
sexuality and misogyny of the Oriental are marketable; neither her/his literary creativity
nor his/her humanity sells.

The popularity of Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and Djebar's A Sister to
Scheherazade or Women of Algiers cannot be dissociated flom the commodification of
Islamic otherness in the Western world. The publication of works written by postcolonial
writers does not mean that the relations between the “First” and “Third World” have
become less hegemonic. This unequal balance of power manifests itself in the choice of
books and authors published and studied in Western academia. It is almost as if the only
books marketable in the West were those written about Muslim women’s oppression,
Muslim men’s tyranny and Islamic fundamentalism.

It is also this same marketability of the "Muslim woman" that Laura Bush is

trying to sell on her 17 November 2001 radio address. Justifying the war under the cloak

217

of feminism, she states that "the fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and
dignity of women." Laura Bush's claim that this war is fought on behalf of Muslim
women and children raises many questions: Why did the suffering of the "Muslim
woman" in Afghanistan become visible only after 11 September 2001? Why is the
suffering of women and children in Iraq and Algeria still invisible? To whom is Laura
Bush selling her discourse on the oppressed "Muslim woman"?

Perhaps more important than securing the support of the Muslim world in the US.
war against al Qaeda and the Taliban regime, this so-called noble and feminist war is for
the purpose of reassuring American women about the possible loss of their rights in the
rise of the Christian right-wing groups to power. The flequently broadcast scene of the
monstrous "Muslim man" shooting the veiled and helpless Muslim woman in the head5
serves as an instrument of ideological manipulation aimed at relieving American
women's anxieties over the loss over their sexual rights. This commodification of the
Muslim Other is also ideologically instrumental in eliding the class struggle in America
and in making everyone believe that they are flee and enjoying the blessings of fleedom
and democracy.

Before September 11, neither the Algerian Civil War, nor the oppression of
women in Afghanistan aroused the interest of the American Mass media who were too
preoccupied with Bill Clinton's pararnours to notice the tragedies unfolding in the rest of
the world. In Time magazine for instance, there was only one article on Algeria. The
article "Drumbeat of Death" shows two gory pictures of a morgue in a village and a
murdered young boy lifted flom a well, where the Islamists dumped his body after

slashing his neck (Time October 6, 1997). The article, however, gives only dates with no

218

analysis of the raging civil war in Algeria. If the voice of the suffering "Muslim woman"
in Algeria is still unheard in the US. news, it is partly because of indifference and partly
because of the billions of dollars the US. oil companies Exxon, ARCO, and Bechtel are
making in Algeria. As Laura Flanders reports, not one single American life was killed in
Algeria. The American gas and oil workers "toil in a virtually autonomous militarized
zone in the south, flom which most Algerians are barred by military guards" ("Algeria
Unexarnined-Tens of Thousands Dead and It's Barely News" 6). In 1996, when tens of
thousands of Algerian women, children, and intellectuals were slaughtered by the F IS,
Graham E. Fuller who was asked by the US. army to examine what would happen to
Algeria should it fall under the hands of the F IS, wrote:
The Islamic Salvation Front will almost surely seek to

impose a level of Islamic austerity as a way of life--in dress

(especially for women), ban of public sale of alcohol, and

censorship of fihns and TV. It will not oppose women in the

workplace but may strive to separate them flom where readily

feasible. It will probably adopt separate-sex educational

institutions. . .

[However, the] adoption of these practices should be of no

strategic concern to the West unless gross violations of human

rights should take place outside the context of austere Islamic law.

(qtd. in Flanders 6-7)

Likewise, when the Taliban came to power in 1996, and at a time when reports
were already coming flom RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Women of
Afghanistan) about the oppressive rules the Taliban imposed on women, the October 14,
1996 issue of Time magazine wrote: "For its part the US cares little who governs
Afghanistan as long as it is governed and stable--and not led by radical Muslims"
(Anthony Spaeth, "A Peace that Terrifies: Tough Islamic Laws Rule in Afghanistan and

the US, Russian and Pakistan Warily Eye the Fundamentalists" 62). The article raises

219

many questions: Who is a radical Muslim? Or rather, when does one become a radical
Muslim? Why aren't these tough "Islamic laws" in Algeria and Afghanistan alarming to
Fuller, Spaeth, and the American government? Both Fuller's statement and Spaeth's
article on Afghanistan in Time magazine present the violence against women in Algeria
and Afghanistan as part of the "austere" Islamic culture. In the name of multiculturalism,
we must remain silent and accept these atrocities committed against women. As
Bronwyn Winter superbly argues, "the two superficially contradictory" discourses of
"Orientalism" and "multiculturalism" are not "as contradictory as they appear: "They are
different faces of the same essentializing and dehistoricizing of Muslim culture"
("Fundamental Misunderstandings: Issues in Feminist Approaches to Islarnism" 2).

In her address at the United Nations International Women's Day Conference on
Women's Rights, May 4, 1999, Hillary Rodham Clinton rejects such cultural relativism
and argues that women's oppression cannot be justified under the banner of culture:

[The oppression of women in Afghanistan] is an example that we

must carefully examine because it is being justified in the name of

culture and tradition. It is, as the Secretary of State, Madeline

Albright, often says, "no longer acceptable to say that the abuse

and mistreatment of women is cultural--it should be called what it

is: criminal."
In her 26 March 1999 "Women's Rights-Address" in Tunis, Hillary Rodham Clinton also
addressed the issue of violence against women in Algeria and Afghanistan. However,
these beautifirl feminist sentiments were of no political consequences for the women of
Algeria and Afghanistan. The First Lady's feminist concern for her oppressed "Muslim
sister" has been silenced by Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Politician, who is too enmeshed

with Corporate America6 to take any action to stop the atrocities against women in

Algeria and Afghanistan.

220

In 1998, at the same time the Taliban regime was hosting Bin Laden who had
already bombed the American embassies in Kenya and Nairobi, the "American Oil giant
UNOCAL was hosting [Taliban] delegates to the US. and praising them in Washington"
("Afghanistan's Forgotten Women," Genders 2). Even though the Senate passed the
Boxer-Brownback Resolution7 on the treatment of Afghan Women in March 1999, the
US. government continued to give its blessing to the Taliban regime, first by doing
nothing, and second by meeting members of the Taliban government. During the visit of
the Taliban official Sayed Rahmatuallah Hashimi to Washington DC. on 20 March 2001,
Afghan women and men as well as members of the American Feminist Majority picketed
outside the buildings of the US. government with "signs reading, 'Save Afghan Women,‘
'Give me Liberty,’ 'Stop Gender Apartheid' and US. Don't Recognize the Taliban'"
(Joanne Stato and Karla Mantilla, "Afghan Women Protest Taliban in Washington" 1).
According to Stato, one of the possible reasons for the meeting is to stabilize the region
"in order to clear the way for a proposed oil pipeline flom Central Asia, through
Afghanistan, to Pakistan. The pipeline project has been planned by American companies
since the mid 19903" (2).

Because the giant American oil companies8 were making billions of dollars, and
because those who were being slaughtered were not American citizens, the Sunni Taliban
regime (the sworn enemies of the Shi'i regime in Teheran) and even a possible FIS
government in Algeria, could only be read by Fuller and Spaeth as moderate Islamic
regimes, their atrocities justified and hidden under the banner of Islamic culture. Prior to
11 September 2001, the construction of the "Muslim woman" in America was caught

between two contradictory imperatives: the discourse of cultural liberal humanism, and

221

the US. imperialist or neocolonial policies, which gave tacit support to fundamentalist
Islamic regimes like the Taliban.

To the question "can the Muslim woman speak?" I would like to say yes;
however, I have reservations about essentializing and holding Muslim women's voices as
the unique sign of their liberation. Perhaps more than their voice or their orgasm--which
became the fixation of the American mass media and even Arab feminists like Evelyn
Accad--what Muslim women want is access to education and social and economic
opportunities for themselves and their families. Perhaps more than Uncle Sam's manna,
the "Muslim woman" wants to keep her children alive, safe flom the US. cluster bombs
and the Russian grenades. Rather than dismissing the discourse of human rights as an

9 Even

imperialist or neocolonial mode, I believe in the strategic use of humanism.
though universalism was and continues to be at the service of imperialism, this concept
needs to be critiqued, reevaluated, and deployed as part of a "transnational“0 or planetary
humanism that is based on social, economic, and political justice. Spivak's pessimistic
presentation of humanism as "white men saving brown women flom brown men"ll ought
to be strategically revised as "humanity saving humanity for and flom humanity."

After the September tragedy, many American secular humanists and feminists
stood up to condemn the violence against the Arab and Muslim communities in America.
All over the country, there were conferences where men and women flom all faiths were
invited to explain the social, economic, and political reasons behind the September 11
attack. This is important because the big networks still insist that the attacks were

triggered by envy, jealousy, Satan, Arab violence and misogyny, insecure masculinity,

God's wrath, irrational hatred for America and the J ews--anything but America's share of

222

responsibility in what happened. Even though it is small, this interest in hearing and
understanding the other side reflects a new awareness that whatever happens outside the
US. national borders will sooner or later come back to haunt America at home. The
sophisticated communication technology, the intemet, and the rampant infiltration of the
giant Multinational capitalist corporations all over the world economies, has turned the
world into a beehive where everything is connected and interdependent. We can no
longer remain silent over the genocides, epidemics or starvation occurring in other
countries, because it is indeed by reaching out across the borders of nation, faith, class,

race and sexuality that we define our common humanity.

 

' The introductory "Advertisement" section of the play mentions that Mohammed won one thousand dollars
for being the best "tragedy, in five acts" in 1849.

2 The reference here is to Muhammad's betrothal to Zeineb bint Jahsh, who was divorced by Muhammad's
own adopted son and ex-slave Zaid Ibn Haritha. In the Preface to the play, Miles states that he was
inspired by Goéthe's and Voltaire's accounts of Muhammad (VI).

5 Quoted flom "Media, Margins and Modernity: Raymond Williams and Edward Said," in the appendix to
Raymond Williams, The Politics of Modernism: Against the New Conformists (London: Verso, 1989) 196-
97.

" According to al Garradi, the first English translation of al Ma'arri's garden was by Reynold Alleyne
Nicholson, "The Risalatu'l Ghufran by Abu'l 'Ala al Ma'arri," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1900):
637-721. I was however unable to have access to this first translation. Only Blackenbury's 1943
translation was accessible to me.

5 See Saira Shahl's fihn "Inside Afghanistan: Behind the Veil," broadcast only once on CNN before 11
September 2001, and many times afterwards.

5 It is equally hard to believe Albright's concern for the plight of the Muslim woman after declaring on 12
May 1996 in 60 Minutes that the sanctions against Iraq would be sustained at any price, even the lives of

over half a million Iraqi children. The Muslim woman is not just oppressed by her "Monstrous Muslim
Husband/Father," but also by Albright's genocidal policies.

7 Resolution 68 states: "It is the sense of the Senate that the President should instruct the United States
Representative to the United Nations to use all appropriate means to prevent the Taliban-led government in
Afghanistan from obtaining the seat in the United Nations General Assembly reserved for Afghanistan so
long as the human rights violations against women and girls in Afghanistan continue." The resolution also
states that the "United Sates should not recognize any government in Afghanistan that is not taking steps to
improve the rights of women and girls in that country" (information released by the United States
Information Agency in 1999 under the title "Women's Rights: 1848 to the Present").

223

 

8 According to the 28 November 1998 issue of Genders, the giant oil company UNOCAL wanted to make a
pipeline flom Turkmenistan to Pakistan that goes through Afghanistan and needed the cooperation of the
Taliban to stabilize the region against drug dealers, "Muslim terrorists," and Shi'i Iran. In their 12/21/98
update on the situation in Afghanistan, the editorial staff in Genders wrote that "UNOCAL [had] pulled out
of the pipeline deal for [the moment], but recently American mineral/mining exploration executives visited
the Taliban in Kabul looking for deals ("Afghanistan's Forgotten Women" 3).

9 I am indebted in my discussion of humanism to Robbins's "Race, Gender, Class, Postcolonialism: Toward
a New Humanistic Paradigm?" and Anthony C. Allessandrini's "Humanism in Question: Fanon and Said,"
A Companion to Postcolonial Studies, eds. Henry Schwarz & Sangeeta Ray (Malden: Blackwell, 2000).

'0 I am referring to Anthony Kwame Appiah's notion of "transnational" or "ethical" humanism in "Is the
Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial?" Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, ed. P.
Mongia (London: Arnold, 1996) and In My Father's House (New York: Methuen, 1992).

” "Can the Subaltem Speak," Williams, Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory (93).

224

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