Imagine your country has been recently conquered by a hegemonic power with territories across the globe, and your nation is just the latest victim of its voracious appetite for resources and prestige. Needless to say, you and your fellow citizens of a once proud and sovereign community would all be asking the same question, 'How could we have allowed this to happen?' Some possible answers would immediately come to mind. Perhaps your military was inadequate to counter the threat, or maybe your government was plagued by political, ethnic or religious divisions - and that allowed the foreign power to exploit your internal weaknesses. Either one of these conclusions would be logical, and they do explain how some nations have been able to take over other ones throughout history. For one prominent Egyptian, however, neither of these explanations were satisfactory in answering why Egypt had succumbed to the control of the British Empire in the late nineteenth century..
Qasim Amin, born in Alexandria in 1863, had another idea. Rather than deficient armed forces or weak government, he believed patriarchy, the subordination of women by men in all walks of life, was the principal reason behind his country's downfall. Amin, a highly intelligent aristocrat who finished law school at age seventeen, considered women the 'backbone' of society. From this vantage point he stated, 'It is impossible to be successful men, if they do not have mothers capable of raising them to be successful.' Hence, by subjugating women, men had subjugated themselves - eliminating their greatest asset and squandering their most precious resource to become strong, self-sufficient people. On that point, he was absolutely right. Whether or not gender-oppression was the deciding factor in Egypt's loss of political power to Britain is impossible to ascertain.
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Some scholars have questioned his portrayal of gender relations. From the historical evidence, they believe Amin incorrectly painted the relationship between men and women in overly stark terms. Whatever the case, Amin published two books, The Liberation of Women (1899) and The New Woman (1900), and was a male pioneer of Muslim feminism.
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In his writings, Amin boldly claimed that Egypt's Muslim religious elite - along with most Muslim men - had been badly misconstruing the text of the Qur'an. Rather than giving primary status to men, the word of God (given to Muhammad through Gabriel), called for total equality between the sexes, and Amin quoted from the Qur'an to substantiate his argument. Inside the 114 surahs (chapters) in the Muslim holy book, Amin indeed had a wide-range statements to cite from as evidence - of which include the following (3):
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For Muslim men and women
For believing men and women
For devout men and women
For true men and women
For men and women who are
Patient and constant, for men
And women who humble themselves...
For them Allah has prepared
Forgiveness and a great reward (33:35)
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As the promise of a blissful eternity is given to members of each gender equally, God does not favor one over the other from this statement. Here is another Quranic verse supportive of Amin's thesis.
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And their Lord hath accepted
Of them, and answered them:
"Never will I suffer to be lost
The work of any of you,
Be he male or female:
ye are from one another..." (3:195)
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Once again, God does not discriminate between the life's work of men and women. Both are equally recognized. The verse 'ye are from one another' also conveys mutuality. Speaking of mutuality, consider one more quote from the Qur'an that Amin could have used to make his case (among many others):
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O mankind! reverence
Your Guardian-Lord,
Who created you
From a single Person,
Created, of like nature,
His mate, and from them twain
Scattered (like seeds)
Countless men and women -
Fear Allah, through Whom
Ye demand your mutual (rights),
And (reverence) the wombs
(That bore you): for Allah
Ever watches over you (4:1)
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The first part of this verse harkens back to the story of creation for Jews, Christians and Muslims. Instead of woman (Eve) being created from Adam's rib as told in the book of Genesis - which clearly connotes patriarchy - men and women were created by 'a single Person' and 'of like nature.' Perhaps more impressively, the passage, which not only suggests men and women enjoy 'mutual rights' within God's domain but also commands believers to revere 'the wombs (That bore you)', speaks to the equality and honor women deserve in society.
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For Amin and his mentor, Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), their socially egalitarian (or feminist) interpretation of God's word earned the enmity of conservative practitioners of the faith. While some critics found their progressive views to be simply in error, others went so far as to label them traitors to Islam.
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Qasim Amin is truly a man for our time. Out of love and respect for his mother, his wife, his daughters and for all women, he could not remain silent. At the same time, Amin realized that in liberating women - men also liberate themselves from being on the wrong side of both reason - and an all-loving God.
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(Picture: Qasim Amin, 1863-1908)
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To read a short, key passage from one of Amin's shorter writings on women, please click onto the following link: http://www.mediterraneas.org/article.php3?id_article=72
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To see Qasim Amin's Facebook page, please click onto the following link:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Qasim-Amin/110931988957573
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Source for translation of the Qur'an: Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Meaning of The Holy Qur'an (Beltsville, MD, Amana Publications, 2001).
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J Roquen