The Cloisters is the medieval art branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, located in Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan. The building that houses the galleries is an amazing conglomeration of multiple monasteries from Europe that were crated up, shipped here to New York, and then reconstructed on site using a mix of original and modern materials. The attempt was well done and walking through the Cloisters feels like walking through an old monastery. There’s a main chapel, a smaller chapel, gardens and exhibit halls. The gardens are full of growing herbs and plants that were used during the medieval period, from nightshade to hops.
Going to the Cloisters is a pretty short trip. You can easily see everything in a day, and that’s if you take your time walking around and reading all of the inscriptions. The Met advertises that you can pay at either the main branch or the Cloisters and then access both branches in the same day, but I think that’s a bit of stretch, unless you do it on a Friday or Saturday, when the main building doesn’t close until 9 PM. Also, keep in mind that the prices listed at the entrance are “suggested” prices, meaning that’s what they recommend. You don’t have to pay that much to get in, so if you’re a little tight for cash, you can give them a dollar or two and they’ll still let you in.
Another great thing about the Cloisters is the park it’s located in. Fort Tryon park has some great views. Unlike most parts of Central Park, Fort Tryon Park is extremely hilly, with lots of paths, stairs, and great places for photo opportunities. When my wife and I went to the Cloisters, we rode the bus in from the train station, but on the way out we walked through the park. We’re looking forward to going back to the Cloisters in the near future, but we’re looking forward to exploring the park just as much.
These are some pictures of two old, abandoned buildings we saw on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd (which is also Seventh Avenue). I have no idea what these buildings were originally built for, but the narrower one had been repurposed at least once. The arched openings had been sealed over with concrete blocks that had narrower doors set into them, equipped with drop-down security gates found on most stores in New York City that were built within the last twenty or thirty years. I got an approximation of an address (2341 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd) for the narrower building from Google Maps and then searched for property records, but all I found was a record listing the place as a “Theater/Performing Arts” venue. I couldn’t find any information on the other, larger building.
I like abandoned buildings. I always have. One of my earliest memories is of me and my brother exploring an abandoned building in a small town called Bell, in Germany, where we were living temporarily while waiting for on-base housing. I loved castle ruins too. It’s fun to see historical artifacts in a museum, but it’s a very different experience when you’re looking through a place where people used to live their lives, trying to put together an idea of what might have happened there.
As a bonus, I realized that in the background of some of my photographs is the Abyssinian Baptist Church. The congregation that eventually constructed the church at its current location, which was completed in 1923 at a cost of roughly $334k, was established in 1808 as a result of a walkout from the First Baptist Church in lower Manhattan, when black parishioners were told to adhere to segregated seating. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who that portion of Seventh Avenue is named after, was a pastor at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, which was named in honor of the place of origin of most of the founding members: modern Ethiopia.
On Thursday, my wife and I were walking downtown and, mixed in with advertisements, I saw this graffiti on the barrier walling off an empty lot. The first thing I thought of when I saw the images were the animal paintings in the cave at Lascaux, France. Those are some of the oldest cave art images in the world. I remember reading about them in an Art History course I took a few years ago. But, when I saw the humanoid figures, I was more reminded of the style of North American Petroglyphs, which I’d seen in… ::cough, cough:: … Ancient Alien History channel specials, with that white guy with the crazy, curly looking hair:
Anyway, I like most of the graffiti I see anyway, but I especially appreciated the attempt of the person who did this to present something historical. I wonder if aliens painted this graffiti, in an attempt to remind us of the eternal truths of the petroglyphs in the southwest United States?
This graffiti is located on Varick Street, between Watts Street and Broome Street:
On the 6th of this month, my wife and I met up with friends of ours to check out an exhibit on children’s books at the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. I love going to that library! Right now, it’s just a reference library, meaning you can’t check any books out to take home, though there’s a chance that could change soon. There are plans being made to move a lot of the reference works to a storage facility in New Jersey and open up the area that is now called “the stacks” to the public as an area with books that can be taken home, though these plans are meeting heavy opposition from scholars who have filed lawsuits to block the removal of reference materials from the site.
The Fifth Avenue library branch regularly shows exhibits with different themes. Last year, we went to see an exhibit on old Automat restaurants. I think you’d call them restaurants anyway. The exhibit we saw this time was on children’s books.
I wasn’t expecting much, but I was surprised by how well the exhibit was set up and the diversity of books on display.
Dick and Jane!
A Japanese Faerie Tale
They had everything from traditional American textbooks to Hindu comic books to Japanese faerie tales.
Little Golden Books in a case shaped like a Giant Golden Box
A few of the books on display were books I remembered reading as a kid, like the Little Golden Books series. Most were older. Some were a lot newer, though, like the Harry Potter series. I’ve seen the movies and I’d like to read those books when I get a chance too. According to the display, Harry Potter books are the fastest selling of all time. My wife says it’s because the books appeal to kids, teens and adults, so the audience buying them is a lot bigger. Makes sense to me.
I’ve always been fascinated by books. I guess that’s a good thing, considering the field I chose to pursue in college. I just placed an order for 17 books for one master’s history class for this Fall semester. Woot woot! I have so many books I’ve run out of shelves to put them on. I’ve given away lots of books to charity in the past when my collection became too cumbersome to take with me when moving, but this time most of my books are history books or books on religion, politics, sociology and anthropology. In other words, they’re all books I’ll probably need in the future as a student and teacher. I suppose there are worse things to have too many of in your house!
Gallery of more photos from the children’s book exhibit:
A book on doll making.
Technology and Progress, Comrade!
A Hebrew Alef-Bet Book. Alef and Bet are the first letters of the Hebrew Alphabet.
A 1928 Soviet Central Asian textbook. Turkic written in Arabic Script.
Japanese faerie tales.
A Japanese Faerie Tale
A strange Alice in Wonderland puppet with a neck that extends and retracts.
A strange Alice in Wonderland puppet with a neck that extends and retracts.
The original Winnie the Pooh and Friends
A page from a previously banned book that depicts the marriage of a white rabbit to a black rabbit, called The Rabbits’ Wedding by Garth Williams, originally published in 1958.
Superman #79
Where the Wild Things Are
Little Golden Books in a case shaped like a Giant Golden Box
Saint Augustine’s Confessions is a book about the early life and conversion to Christianity of Augustine of Hippo, one of the most famous Christian scholars of antiquity. The book starts off with a description of childhood, then moves on to describe Augustine’s quest for knowledge both among the Manichees and through study of the traditional liberal arts, including oratory and rhetorical skills. An intensely personal account by design, Augustine reveals his internal struggle as he reminisces about the loss of his childhood friend, whose name he does not reveal, as well as his struggles with sexuality and his doubts about the nature of God. Essentially, the book is meant to show Augustine’s path from a confused childhood to a position of solid conviction in the Catholic faith, but Confessions can also be used as a source of historical information. This essay will examine the first seven chapters of Confessions to discover what it implies about the late 4th and early 5th century Roman society that shaped Augustine’s life.
One of the more interesting things that can be discerned from the book is the potential for mobility available in Roman society, both in terms of physical and social movement. Of course, Augustine’s case is not indicative of the norm, but he was able to advance from being the son of a modest family in Tagaste (in modern day Algeria) to being a well-respected and socially connected professor of rhetoric in Milan, before his conversion, which is related in chapters outside the scope of this essay. Augustine’s reasons for leaving his home village were originally related to study opportunities and a need to leave a place that reminded him strongly of the death of a childhood friend. His ability to travel within the empire for education purposes is interesting because it implies that there was a system in place that allowed for the boarding and education of students during his time. His ability to rise through the ranks of society based on his intellectual abilities shows that class distinctions were not set in stone and he specifically mentions that many Roman offices were available to anyone with the right amount of money. In a modern context, this has a negative connotation, and perhaps it did in Augustine’s time as well, because in his writing he felt the need to explain that as a system it allowed the state access to needed revenues and acted as a pathway to success for those born to lower classes.
In his writing, Augustine mentioned that not all families were willing to support their children’s education outside of their local towns, even when they were better-off economically than Augustine’s own family. Augustine did not go into detail about this point, but it leaves the reader wondering what motivations a family might have for not wanting to promote the education of their children at all costs, as Augustine’s did, when it might lead the family to greater success. If the story about Alypius and the responsibility of a “house” for a crime is any indication, the Roman family unit probably shared equally in success as well as culpability for crimes and failures.[1] Was it a cultural expectation that children would follow in the footsteps of their parents, leading to a lackadaisical attitude towards aggressive social advancement, or was the lack of interest in education outside of Tagaste something specific to that locality?
Much of Augustine’s writing in Confessions deals with education, because he wrote about both his time as a pupil and as an educator. His writing makes it clear that corporal punishment was a well-used form of discipline that acted as a motivator for children to pay attention to their studies. The fact that Augustine and, presumably, other children endured caning as a punishment and prayed for respite instead of abandoning school indicates that there was some measure of compulsion in attendance, either from families or from the state. Also, unless the phrase was added by the translator, the inclusion of the “three Rs” as a figure of speech (reading, writing, and arithmetic) shows that areas of study for primary school students in the late 4th century were fairly consistent with modern education standards.[2] His later education reveals a break with modern ideals about the purpose of studying the liberal arts, however. According to Augustine, forming logical arguments that revealed the truth about a matter were of secondary importance to style and delivery. Eloquence and the ability to convey a sense of conviction were more important than being able to logically argue a truth.
Similarly related to education, student culture in Roman society is revealed through Augustine’s writings. Bullying was alive and well in the 4th century. Schoolyard gangs even had nicknames, like “The Wreckers”, who would find “shy and unknown freshmen… to persecute…by mockery…to feed their own malevolent amusement.”[3] Augustine dealt with this group as a student by staying on friendly terms with them, but refused to participate in their mockery and acts of vandalism. Augustine wrote that in Carthage, students would burst into a classroom and purposely disrupt it with “mad behavior.”[4] Later, as an adult, Augustine complained of a practice common among Roman students, who would sit with a teacher for a number of classes and then transfer en masse to another instructor to avoid making payment.[5]
Augustine’s writing reveals quite a bit about religion during the late 4th and early 5th centuries in the Roman Empire, most obviously because the book is about his journey to conversion to Catholocism, but the first seven chapters of the book also discuss the Manichees and give an example of religious syncretism among professed Catholics. Augustine wrote that he spent nine years as a follower of the Manichee religion and through his writings, we can see that it was institutionally similar to the Catholic Church, including having Bishops, but professed very different concepts of God. The instance of religious syncretism that Augustine took time to mention was his mother’s practice of tomb veneration through the offering of plates of fruit and the ritual sipping of wine at the burial sites of Catholic martyrs. Augustine mentioned that his mother was not alone during these ceremonies, so the practice must have been widespread. I also make this conjecture based on the fact that in later centuries, and continuing up to the present, Islamic scholars in the Middle East have been condeming the same practice among Muslims regarding veneration of the tombs of saints, martyrs and especially Sufi pirs.
This brief selection of information from the first seven chapters of Saint Augustine’s Confessions shows how historical information about an author’s society can be revealed by analyzing that author’s work, even when recording historical information is not the main purpose of the work. This essay examines the chapters on their own, but by comparing what Augustine wrote to other available information, one could further the process of reconstructing Roman society and elaborate on the circumstances surrounding Augustine’s life and conversion to Catholocism.
[1] Saint Augustine, Confessions (Oxford University Press, 2009), 101.
Between semesters, my wife and I went to Tupelo, Mississippi to visit some friends who are about to move abroad for a few years. I didn’t know anything about Tupelo before planning the trip. I had to look the place up on a map just to figure out where it is. Tupelo isn’t a large or bustling city. According to the town’s Wikipedia entry, it has “a population of 37,559, with the surrounding counties of Lee, Pontotoc and Itawamba supporting a population of 146,131.” It’s a one traffic-light kind of place. It did have a mall and a Barnes & Noble, which was nice. What surprised me most, though, was when I saw a sign directing people to the birthplace of Elvis Presley. I was thinking, ‘Wow! Elvis was born here?‘ I’d just always assumed he was from Memphis, probably because that’s where he became famous.
Anyhow, we didn’t go to Tupelo to see Elvis; we were there to spend time with our friends, so when I saw the sign for the location, I didn’t mention it. But, when they suggested we stop by Elvis’ birthplace one evening, my wife and I were happy to agree. I mean, why not? It’ll probably be the one and only time we’ll ever see the place. I can’t imagine ever having a reason to be back in Tupelo. Not that it’s a bad place to be, but travel is expensive and there are plenty of places to visit in the world.
Replica of the 1939 green Plymouth sedan that carried Elvis’ family to Memphis.
The first thing we saw when we pulled up at the Elvis birthplace site was an old car sitting out front. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a replica of the 1939 Plymouth sedan that the Presley family drove when they left Tupelo for Memphis, which is where Elvis became famous.
House Elvis Presley was born in.
Also close to the parking lot is the actual house where Elvis was born. It was in good shape. The only odd thing about it was the large air conditioning unit hooked up to the back of it. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have one of those when Elvis was growing up!
The house is surrounded by a “Walk of Life” which is a rounded set of paving stones with important years and events noted. Since it circles the house, I was humming the Lion King tune, “Circle of Life” to myself while looking at it. It’s pretty informative. I was surprised to find out that Elvis had a twin brother who was stillborn and that his father had spent some time in jail.
Elvis’ Birthplace
The grounds are fairly nice. They’re certainly well-maintained, which is understandable. I imagine a lot of revenue enters Tupelo because of its connection to Elvis Presley.
Fountain at Elvis’ birthplace with key dates.
This fountain had plaques inset into the walls showing key dates in Elvis’ life, including his birth, move to Memphis and death.
Grove of trees around a statue of 13 year old Elvis PresleyStatue of Elvis at 13 years old.
In a grove of trees a bronze statue was set up of Elvis when he was 13 years old.
Assembly of God church that Elvis attended as a child.
The Assembly of God church that Elvis attended as a child was moved to the location, so visitors could see the where Elvis received some of his inspiration. Other plaques set up around the area mentioned that Elvis was inspired by African-American music and rhythms. He was born poor, so he spent most of his time on the “wrong” side of the tracks where the poor African-Americans lived. The area was referred to as Shake Rag.
When we visited the site, the museum was already closed, so we didn’t get to look around inside. The Elvis Presley memorial chapel was also closed. I thought that was interesting, that a chapel was included at a museum. You don’t see religion mixed with much of anything these days. It was probably justified by the large influence that gospel music played in producing Elvis’ style.
We did get to look in the outhouse, but inside the door there was a plexiglass shield, probably to keep people from actually sitting down and relieving themselves.
Tupelo, Mississippi City Hall
Elvis is a pretty big deal in Tupelo, so he isn’t just represented at his birthplace; he also has a bronze statue in front of City Hall. The statue replicates a photo taken by Roger Marshutz (shown below) during Elvis’ 1956 homecoming concert.
I’m not the biggest Elvis fan. I don’t have a favorite Elvis song and I can’t remember the last time I looked up Elvis music online. Still, he’s an American classic and his music is still good. I don’t think I’ll suddenly become a die-hard Elvis fan, but I think I’ll spend some more time listening to his music and I’ll maybe even understand it better, now that I have an idea of where he came from.
Original Description: Sart woman. Samarkand. Woman in purdah, standing near wooden door. The garment worn appears to be a paranja, taken between 1905 and 1915, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress) Wikipedia Commons
The politics of gender in the Muslim world often seem to center on a conflict between Islam and modernity, but in the case of Soviet Central Asia, the conflict was instead between a post-colonial power that was in the process of defining itself and simultaneously trying to incorporate the diverse populations of former imperial territories.[1] In other words, the conflict in Central Asia was not about whether or not Islam was compatible with modernity, but was rather a conflict between the center and the periphery of a new state and methods of establishing control and homogenization. Gender and gender politics came to play an important role in this conflict, and revolved around two concepts: modernity and loyalty.[2] Because the Soviet government was competing with democratic nations on the world stage, officials wanted the state to be seen not only as effectively governing its citizens, but also as modern and progressive.[3] To accomplish this, modernizing Central Asian society became a primary goal of Bolshevik policy.[4] This modernization process came to focus on the social status of women, who, in the Soviet narrative, were oppressed and in need of liberation. Consequently, the role of Central Asian men, in terms of how they related to women, also became a point of contention, causing gender relations to become not only a marker of modernity, but of party loyalty.
This paper will focus on the conflict between Soviet Russian and Central Asian perceptions of gender and family relations and how these traditions became politicized in an attempt to affect social change that would, the Soviets hoped, lead to progress and modernity. This paper will explore different approaches by the Soviet government to revolutionize Central Asian society through regulating or banning customs, including polygyny, underage marriages, and seclusion, which culminated in the Hujum (a systematic, organized attack on all signs of perceived gender inequality in Central Asia by the Soviets) in 1927. The paper will address some of the reasons why the Soviets chose to focus on the role of women in society, why the veil became a marker of modernity and how the adoption of unveiling by the Soviets, as an official policy, affected the ability of women to become “modern” without facing severe repercussions. This paper will focus on the role of the veil and the Hujum in Uzbek society (and later the Uzbek republic), as well as attempts by Soviet authorities to “liberate” women in Turkmen society (and the Turkmen republic). The paper will focus on these two areas because events in those regions exemplify the struggle over the politicization of women in Central Asian society both when there was, and when there was not, a powerful symbol that activists could rally behind. That choice is not intended to diminish the role, importance, or experiences of women in Kazak, Kyrgyz or Tajik societies, but is rather for the sake of brevity. Also, this paper does not explain in detail the events of the Hujum itself, but rather engages with the arguments describing why the Hujum happened and what it meant.
The most prominent confrontation between Soviet ideals and Central Asian society, in terms of gender, was arguably the Hujum, a direct and large scale attack on the social customs of veiling and seclusion. The veil specifically became a symbol of backwardness that needed to be cured by Soviet modernity. Soviet officials hoped that newly liberated Central Asian women would feel indebted to the state, creating a loyal foundation of citizens. According to Douglas Northrop, the decision to substitute gender for class rested on an assumption that, “Despite obvious differences among them… Muslim women were… fundamentally united by a common experience: they were all victims of oppressive structures of patriarchal Islamic society.”[5] This argument, first proposed by Gregory J. Massell, presents Central Asian women as a “surrogate proletariat,” that could finally help the Soviets enact long desired social changes, simultaneously modernizing social customs and dealing a blow to Islam, which was portrayed as a bastion of patriarchy and the major obstacle to women’s liberation.[6]
In Soviet rhetoric, the use of the veil in Central Asia, known locally as the paranji, was due to the influence of Islam. However, the practice of veiling was a culturally specific, rather than religiously specific practice. Tradition in Central Asia attributed the beginning of the practice of veiling among women of the sedentary, agricultural and urban populations to Timur-i Lang, who, in a fit of anger, declared that his wife Bibi Xonum’s “charms” had to be hidden by a veil when he discovered that an architect had become enraptured by her beauty.[7] R.R. Rakhimov was critical of this interpretation of veiling as a uniquely Islamic practice that was inherently oppressive to women. He claimed that authors who were critical of Islam frequently used the “women’s question” as an argument and then cited the veil as irrefutable proof that women in Islam lead a joyless life, locked within the walls of their homes. Rakhimov felt that this notion created a false image of Islam as a religion.[8] Marianne Kamp would probably have agreed with him, writing that in early twentieth-century Islamic societies, veiling and modernity were not necessarily incompatible, and that veiling was in fact a form of liberation from a more repressive form of patriarchy: permanent seclusion within the household, which, ironically, later became a self-imposed punishment among some Central Asian women after the Soviet government forced unveiling.[9]
In his essay on veiling and seclusion of Central Asian women, Rakhimov presented compelling evidence that disproved the notion that seclusion and veiling were uniquely Islamic practices. The practice of seclusion was common to many religious-cultural traditions. It was practiced in aristocratic circles in India and Byzantium and, in Biblical times, in Palestine, Judea and Babylon. At one time, it was customary for Jewish women to only appear in public if their head was covered, sometimes to the extent that only their eyes showed. Customs of women’s seclusion and veiling were adopted by Islam from pre-Islamic traditions in Persia, Byzantium, and Assyria, and the Byzantines in turn inherited the tradition from the Greeks.[10]
According to a theory proposed by G.A. Pugachenkova, the paranji worn by Central Asian women at the beginning of the twentieth century was conceptually descended from a garment worn by a fertility goddess native to Central Asian religion in pre-Islamic times mixed with Islamic ideas later introduced to the region.[11] He also presented a theory of the paranji as being a form of dress designed with the protection of the individual in mind, protecting the wearer from the sun and hot breezes and having a face net that blocks the wearer (and an infant being carried under the veil) from being exposed to diseases, or imagined evils in the world around her.[12] Regardless of whether or not these theories are accurate, they show that the use of veils and seclusion were not specific to Islam or Islamic societies. In fact, Leila Ahmed argued that there is no justification for veiling in Islam, only instructions for women to guard their private parts and cover their “bosoms” with a scarf, though this view is contested.[13]
So, why were women chosen as a means of revolutionizing Central Asian society? And why was the veil such a powerful symbol? A framework that may help explain the discourse in Soviet Central Asia regarding women, and even the current discourse on women’s status in Muslim countries in general, is that the interest in the veil is based on “otherness” and colonial needs to subjugate populations, both literally and conceptually. Leila Ahmed wrote that interest in Muslim women grew proportionally as Western nations established themselves as colonial powers in Muslim countries. The focus on women was a fusion of several strands of thought that were developing in the Western world in the latter half of the 1800s. It was a:
“coalescence between the old narrative of Islam … which Edward Said’s Orientalism details… and the broad, all-purpose narrative of colonial domination regarding the inferiority, in relation to the European culture, of all Other cultures and societies… and finally… the language of feminism… [in which] Victorian womanhood and mores with respect to women, along with other aspects of society at the colonial center, were regarded as the ideal and measure of civilization.”[14]
The veil was a powerful symbol because it was highly visible and clearly differed from the norms established by Western, European society, the supposed peak of civilization. Attacking the veil was a means to an end, giving the Soviets the opportunity to point to something visible that they could remove from women’s lives, to give Central Asian women what they imagined was a gift of liberation that they would be eternally grateful for. Marianne Kamp might have called this a flawed understanding of Islamic societies. She wrote that unveiling movements were only successful when initiated by Muslim women, outside of and apart from government intervention, especially when that government was an outside or Western influence. Instances where outside influences were seen to be pushing for unveiling women were seen as attacks on Islamic values.[15]
An attack on values was just how the unveiling campaign was perceived, which is precisely why it has become known as the Hujum (“the attack”). Before the unveiling campaign in Uzbekistan, some women had already chosen to unveil and, while it was frowned on, the backlash wasn’t very violent. One example is Saodat Shamsieva, an Uzbek woman who was born in To’rtqo’l, Xorazm in 1908 and spent most of her life as a women’s activist and editor of women’s magazines. She told Marianne Kamp about her experiences growing up and living in Central Asia and described why she stopped wearing the paranji. She said she was able to unevil because she fled to another city with a man she had met and married. In her new setting she wasn’t under the supervision of any men that would have forced her to veil or seclude herself, so she decided to just wear a scarf instead. She related having hardships in her life, but not because she chose to be unveiled. [16]
According to Kamp’s research, the practice of veiling was not as widespread as one would be led to believe by Soviet attacks against the practice. Sedentary women working in the fields normally wore a chopan, a men’s or child’s robe, draped from her head, but did not cover her face. In other places, town-dwelling Tajik women (who were normally uncovered or only covered their mouths in the presence of men) would wear a paranji in crowded places and rural Uzbek women went unveiled and only covered themselves when confronted by the clergy or Russians. Some villagers could not even afford paranjis and in the 1910s and 1920s only women who did not work in the fields typically wore them.[17]
Why paranjis and their use became more prominent is not entirely clear. Marianne Kamp proposed that men may have felt the need to hide their women from outsiders. She also wrote that during that time there was growth in Islamic institutions and learning, as well as Hajj participation, so views on veiling and a renewed emphasis on the association of unveiled women with prostitution may have been imported from other Islamic areas. Combined with the increased affluence of Central Asians, paranjis became more affordable and developed into status symbols through the incorporation of expensive materials.[18]
By the time the Soviets decided to launch the Hujum, the use of paranjis had become a mainstream practice associated with traditional Central Asian culture and traditions, but it was still possible for women to unveil when they were outside of their kinship groups. However, after the Soviets adopted the unveiling campaign, the intervention of a foreign power was seen negatively and caused Central Asians to hold more tightly to tradition than they had before. Wearing the paranji came to symbolize upholding traditional Central Asian values, compared to unveiling, which symbolized acceptance of Soviet values. This shift in discourse took the power to choose out of the hands of women, who became passive objects in a battle for control over the future of traditions, values, social structures, and the division of labor. Women were told what being veiled and unveiled meant, and what they represented was essentially coopted by the state and the men around them.
This challenge to society was met with extreme violence in a way that previous decisions to unveil, characterized by Saodat’s experience, did not. Unveiled women were harassed, insulted, sometimes beaten, and sometimes raped or murdered. This behavior was not limited to non-Communist party Central Asians; party officials and even their wives often took part in the abuse.[19] The Hujum was as big an issue for men as it was for women. Besides the obvious potential unveiling had to disrupt the patriarchal social structure, men were measured by their wives’ behavior. Loyalty to the Communist party and Soviet ideals were judged by the status of ones’ wife. Was she veiled or unveiled? Was she actively participating in the party, education, and social life? If it was decided that a Communist party man’s wife was not living according to Soviet ideals, the husband could lose his party membership.
The veil proved to be a powerful symbol to rally behind during the Hujum, but the use of the paranji was mostly limited to urban and sedentary populations in what is modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.[20] In other parts of Central Asia, like the Turkmen republic, women did not wear the paranji or chachvon (the heavy horsehair veil that covered the face) so it was necessary to find other ways to liberate them from the patriarchal constraints of Central Asian society. Without a potent visual symbol that people could rally behind, however, this proved to be a much more complicated process than the theatrical and public displays of burning paranjis.
The Communist party Women’s Department, or Zhenotdel, instead concentrated on legal reforms to draw Turkmen women into public life. Like the other Central Asian republics, laws were passed that outlawed certain “crimes of custom,” but unlike in the Uzbek republic, where Soviet officials shifted from legislating against crimes of custom to engaging in direct actions (the Hujum and burning paranjis), legislating against female subordination never gave way to direct action in the Turkmen republic.[21] The most significant reason for this was that Turkmen women were traditionally unveiled. Because the paranji had so strongly been associated with female subordination, the Turkmen women were imagined to already be liberated, simply because their faces were showing. Adrienne Lynn Edgar quoted a Russian traveler in Transcaspia in the 1880s as saying:
“The Teke woman does not resemble other Muslim women, who do not have the right to show themselves to a male stranger and who know no life but that of the harem. Nor does she resemble the European woman. She has equal rights. The Teke does not regard his wife as a slave or solely as a source of household labor, but sees in her a friend, a person equal to himself.”[22]
This fairly romanticized vision of nomadic Turkmen and their women helps to demonstrate the strength of the association between veiling and subordination among Muslim women that was prevalent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Central Asia. Because Turkmen women were unveiled, they were automatically assumed to have full and equal rights. The lack of a veil did not mean that women were automatically equal, however. The veil was just the most visible sign of a male-dominated society. In Turkmen society, like other Central Asian societies, women were still seen as representative of family honor; they were expected to obey their parents and husbands; they were subject to being part of polygamous marriages; and men had sole authority to initiate a divorce.[23]
By the second half of the 1920s, Zhenotdel activists came to believe that Turkmen women were not as liberated as they had once believed and began looking for new ways to initiate social change. Unlike Soviet officials in the Uzbek republic, who were hoping to use the liberation of women from the veil to delegitimize Islam, officials in Turkmenistan attempted to separate the issues of Islam and women’s oppression, instead emphasizing the ways in which Turkmen customary law denigrated women.[24] By 1927, the year the Hujum started, “official propaganda on Turkmen women could hardly be distinguished from the more general propaganda literature on Muslim female oppression.” A Muslim woman was depicted as a piece of property or a slave that was bought and sold.[25]
But, how do you liberate a woman who is not visibly oppressed? This assault on local culture was something that was looked on with suspicion and hostility by Central Asian men and women. Even some members of the Communist Party disapproved of efforts to liberate women. In the Uzbek republic, the mark of a man’s loyalty came to be defined by whether or not his spouse was veiled, but in the Turkmen republic there was no outward sign of loyalty that could be readily observed. A new symbol had to be found that people could rally behind and use as a marker of modernity and loyalty.
Zhenotdel activists tried to substitute yashmak for the paranji, since the practice is structurally similar to veiling, requiring the covering of the face. In fact, some officials argued that yashmak was even more oppressive, because it required a woman to remain subordinated even in her own home, unable to speak whenever someone older than herself was present. Attempts to make yashmak a rallying symbol for female emancipation failed. Adrienne Lynn Edgar wrote that this was probably because the practice was much more subtle and flexible than veiling.[26] Also, where veiling was a public affair, yashmak took place within the home, where it was probably harder to detect by Zhenotdel activists and Soviet officials.
Because no substitute for the veil could be found, efforts to liberate Turkmen women relied on passing legislation against customs that were detrimental to women’s autonomy. Legislation against crimes of custom began before the period of national delimitation, beginning with decrees against the practice of bride-wealth in January 1923. An October 1924 addendum to the 1918 Russian Federations criminal code banned polygamy. These and additional measures were brought before peasant conferences for open discussion and while not much attention was given to land reform or elections processes, the people “came alive as if shot from a cannon as soon as the woman question came up.” [27] The ban on bride-wealth was extremely controversial. The arguments used against the ban, however, proved the necessity of its enforcement. Peasants argued that raising a daughter was a large time and money investment and that bride-wealth was their due compensation. Other peasants argued that they relied on the windfall of cash that resulted from marrying off a daughter.[28] Both of these arguments reduce a woman to the status of property to be bought and sold, with no individual will or agency.
Despite the obvious necessity of the ban, the practice continued. Even when the Turkmen Central Executive Committee banned polygamy and set the marriage age at 16 for girls and 18 for boys, the practice of bride-wealth was merely declared to be “not sanctioned by law.”[29] Steps were made to equalize women and men’s rights, but some issues could not be touched. The practice of bride-wealth was widely condemned by all levels of society, but because it lacked the visual flair of burning paranjis, it was hard to gain enough support to ban the practice completely. Like the Soviet attempt to force the issue of unveiling in the Uzbek republic, attempts to outlaw bridewealth became the focal point for Turkmen men who saw it as government overreaching and an attack on traditional values and social structures. True to Marianne Kamp’s theory, the moment outside influence focused on changing an aspect of local culture, the locals pushed back all the harder.
Similarly, attempts to give women the right to initiate a divorce met with strong resistance from men, because, according to Edgar, it was perceived as a direct assault on the Turkmen family.[30] Zhenotdel officials had come to believe that Muslim marriages were by definition oppressive to women, so they attempted to make it as easy as possible for women to initiate divorces, a right which had previously been granted by the 1918 Russian Federation family code. To combat this perceived threat to Turkmen values, men engaged with the state in the language of class warfare. Poor peasants claimed that the right of women to initiate divorces was an unfair imposition on them, because women were leaving marriages with poor men in droves so they could become second, third, or fourth wives to rich men. This wasn’t true, but by using the rhetoric of the state, men were able to justify applying stipulations on a woman’s right to initiate a divorce that effectively blocked their access.[31]
As much as the Soviets wanted to liberate women and gain their loyalty and labor, they had to retain the proletariat they already possessed: the male Turkmen. So, throughout this process, the Soviets had to engage in a balancing act between female interests and maintaining favor with the male proletariat. Edgar argued that this constant need to please men at the expense of women’s rights showed the limitations of Massell’s “surrogate proletariat” argument and said that women should instead be thought of as a “supplementary proletariat.”[32] Edgar sums up her argument by noting that through the use of the veil as the “consummate symbol of female oppression, Zhenotdel activists had undermined their ability to be advocates for Muslim women who did not wear the veil.”[33] Prior to narrowing their emancipation activities to arguing for unveiling, however, Zhenotdel activists had attempted to liberate women through the same legislation as that passed in the Turkmen republic. So, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that Soviet officials were only able to make progress at causing deep structural changes in Central Asian society when they had a clear and visible symbol to rally people behind. This, of course, assumes that Soviet officials were deeply interested in women’s emancipation in the first place.
The language of gender was manipulated and politicized by the Soviet Communist party to mobilize labor in Soviet Central Asia, to modernize (and homogenize) traditional society as part of its attempt to show a progressive face to the rest of the world, and as a means of exerting control over elements of society that were seen as dangerous and in need of eradication. The issue of politicized gender in Central Asia is highly complex and deserves more attention than that afforded by this paper, but key elements of Soviet policies, including attempts to legislate against crimes of custom and the need for visible symbols to create markers of modernity have been explored. Further issues that should be explored but were not addressed are the issues of re-veiling and a more in-depth analysis of how Central Asian men used rhetoric to influence gender politics to their benefit.
[1] Deniz Kandiyoti, “The politics of gender and the Soviet paradox: neither colonized, nor modern?”, Central Asian Survey 26 (December 2007): 603.
[2] Douglas Northrop, “Languages of Loyalty: Gender, Politics, and Party Supervision in Uzbekistan, 1927-41,” The Russian Review 59 (April 2000): 181.
[3] Douglas Northrop, Veiled Empire: Gender & Power in Stalinist Central Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 72.
[7] Marianne Kamp, The New Woman in Uzbekistan: Islam, Modernity, and Unveiling Under Communism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), 134.
[8] R.R. Rakhimov, “”Veil of Mystery” (On the Traditional Seclusion of Women in Central Asia),” Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia vol. 45 no. 6 (Spring 2007), 68.
[9] Marianne Kamp, The New Woman in Uzbekistan: Islam, Modernity, and Unveiling Under Communism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), 133-135.
[10] R.R. Rakhimov, “”Veil of Mystery” (On the Traditional Seclusion of Women in Central Asia),” Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia vol. 45 no. 6 (Spring 2007), 68.
A short essay I wrote last year for an undergraduate history course on Islamist political movements:
Modern media has tended to portray Islamist movements as a single entity with a single goal in mind: the establishment of an Islamic state. While it is true that establishing an Islamic state is the end goal, this simple categorization denies the existence of a diversity of Islamist movements, each with different opinions of how a state should be formed and what institutions should be put in place to make it Islamic. Islamists do share a core set of beliefs: the need to establish an Islamic state, the reestablishment of Islamic law as the basis for regulating life, the belief that most or all of the problems in the Muslim world are a result of the failure of the development of ‘authentic’ Islamic institutions to manage political, economic and social life, and the belief that Islam is an all-inclusive social system that could and should regulate all aspects of life.[1]
Beyond these core beliefs, Islamist groups vary widely on essential topics like what form an Islamic government should take and how it should be established. For example, some Islamists believe that Islam is wholly compatible with democracy and others denounce democracy entirely. Part of the reason for the conflict over the admissibility of democracy is a common wholesale rejection of Western ideas due to the long history of colonial exploitation of Muslim lands, or a feeling that adoption of Western ideas is tantamount to admitting defeat, since Islam couldn’t provide a model of government on its own.[2]
In terms of what constitutes proper Islamic governance, the Quran and hadith do not contain much information regarding the establishment of ‘Islamic’ politics or political structures. What Islamic religious sources do say on the topic is vague, laying down general rules rather than specific instructions. An Islamic government should be a “median community” that establishes justice, “command[s] the good and proscribe[s] evil,” and considers the public good in its decision making process.[3] However, what isn’t stated is exactly what constitutes a median community, what justice necessarily is, what institutions should be established to command the good and proscribe evil, or how to include the community in the decision making process, or to what degree the community should be included at all.
The idea of the inclusion of the community in the decision making process, established by Islamic concepts like shura[4] and ijma[5], has been used to justify the idea of democracy being compatible with Islam. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian Islamist, wrote, “A call for democracy does not necessitate a rejection of God’s sovereignty over human beings.”[6] He also said that “Islam antedates democracy in establishing the basic principles on which the essence of democracy rests…” and “…we have the right to borrow from others whatever ideas, methods, and systems might be beneficial to us as long as they do not contradict the clear dictates of the foundational texts or established principles of the shari’a.”[7] He was clearly recalling the fact that much of Islamic philosophy, logic, mathematics, and systems of government were borrowed and adapted from civilizations as diverse as the Greeks, Byzantines, Persians, Indians (South Asian), and Chinese, refuting the idea that the importation of foreign systems and ideas is inherently wrong or contradictory to Islam by using the past as an example.
Additionally, he was arguing against the idea that placing legislative power in the hands of the people (democracy) is a violation of God’s sovereignty and therefore against Islam, an argument favored by Sayyid Qutb. Qutb would not have accepted earlier incorporations of foreign ideologies as a legitimate reason for the incorporation of democracy into Islam. Qutb argued that Muslim society had been degraded and contaminated by Western ideas that had accumulated over the centuries. He believed that these ideas, which he referred to as pathologies, led to the failures present in Egyptian society at the time he was writing.[8] He believed that through action Muslims could regain a dominant position in the world, specifically by re-embracing the ideals of the first generation of Muslims through dedication to the fundamentals of the Qur’an and by purging all vestiges of jahiliyya from their lives, including in the government.
Like Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb advocated the establishment of the Islamic state through violent jihad. Sayyid Qutb was known as the “Philosopher of Islamic Terror” and his ideology inspired the violent jihad of later Islamists.[9] This was true of Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salam Faraj, another Egyptian Islamist who was involved in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Faraj wrote, “Jihad for God’s cause, in spite of its extreme importance and its great significance for the future of this religion, has been neglected by the ‘ulama of this age. … There is no doubt that the idols of this world can be made to disappear only through the power of the sword.”[10] Hamas too believed that violent jihad was the answer, stating in its charter that “Jihad is [the movement’s] methodology, and / Death for the sake of Allah is its most coveted desire.”[11] What these Islamists all had in common was their focus on the near enemy. Al-Banna, Qutb and Faraj were all focused on establishing an Islamic state by defeating the secular Egyptian government. Hamas was focused on defeating the Israeli state. However, not all Islamist groups focus their energies on just the near enemey. Other groups, most notably al-Qaeda, globalized the concept of jihad by placing an emphasis on defeating the far enemy, primarily the United States and Britain. The most memorable of their global strikes was the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City in September 11, 2001.
Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda, led the fight against the United States because of what he saw as continued American (and general Western) intervention and interference in the affairs of Muslims. He was incensed by the fact that the Saudi government had invited American forces into the country to defend the Kingdom rather than relying on Muslims, especially when the American forces remained in the country after hostilities with Iraq ended. He accused the Saudi monarchy of being illegitimate for acting in contradiction to Islamic law, saying, “this situation is a curse Allah has laid upon them for failing to object to the oppressive and illegitimate conduct and measures of the ruling regime, chief of which are: its disregard of Islamic law, its denial of the people’s legitimate rights, the permission given to Americans to occupy the Land of the Two Holy Places, and the unjust imprisonment of righteous ‘ulema.”[12]
Bin Laden believed the American presence in Saudi Arabia was one step in a bigger plan by America and Israel to subjugate the Muslim countries. Like Faraj, he advocated violent jihad as an individual duty that should be fulfilled at any cost, but unlike Faraj, he advocated targeting the West globally, rather than striking locally, because he saw the West as the source of continued unrest in Muslim countries. This shift in the focus of violent retaliation from local to global initiated a new type of jihad which is best described as a decentralized franchise where local groups may be independent or in contact with other groups and are willing to choose targets world-wide.
The belief that all Islamist groups are the same is an oversimplified interpretation of what is really a much more complex group of beliefs and ideologies. Violent Islamists are not even able to coordinate their misappropriation of jihad into a coherent strategy, with some groups focusing on local targets and others focusing on global targets. There are uniting factors, the strongest of which is the end goal of establishing a state based on Islamic law and Islamic values, but even that goal is a point of contention among Islamists, since they are not able to come to a consensus on what type of government is appropriate. Should there be an Islamic democracy? If not, then what? Who should participate? These are just some of the questions from a specific set of issues, violence and the form of government desired, that separate Islamist ideologies, and they are by no means the only questions or the only differences. Islamists may at some point in the future agree on a unified plan to reach a unified goal, but that time is not now.
References
Euben, Roxanne L., and Muhammad Qasim Zaman. Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Management Systems International (MSI). “Exploring the Thinking of Islamists: Islamist Views Toward Government, the Economy, and Pluralism.” USAID. November 2002. http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACW875.pdf (accessed December 13, 2012).
[1] Management Systems International, “Exploring The Thinking of Islamists: Islamist Views Toward Government, the Economy, and Pluralism,” USAID, November 2002, http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACW875.pdf (accessed 13 December 2012).
[4] An Arabic word meaning consultation, or a consultative council or assembly.
[5] An Arabic word referring to the consensus or agreement of the Muslim community on the rightness of a belief or practice.
[6] Roxanne Euben and Muhammad Zaman, Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 238.
In his “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” dated April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the subject of extremism as it applied to the nonviolent direct action he was advocating in Birmingham. Specifically, he was responding to the fact that he had been labeled an extremist by “white moderates” and the Christian leadership of local churches. Rather than arguing against the label, King embraced it and justified it through a well thought out argument that both validated positive forms of extremism and equated the passivity of the white moderates to a form of extremism in itself, because their inaction resulted in a form of severe injustice. For King, extremism and the conception of extremism was a dynamic tool that he used to convey his message and advocate for the ending of segregation.
When the word extremism is used, the first thing that probably comes to mind are violent activities intended to create a political statement, including actions by groups like the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, or the Ku Klux Klan. One could even argue that some modern government policies are extremist. Certainly some people in the United States would consider the PATRIOT Act to be an extremist response to a problem, because it violates certain ideas that are held to be just and inviolable, like the right to privacy. Through his argument, King defended nonviolent direct action by establishing the concept of positive extremism. He defined it and presented it as a means of seeking justice which would result in brotherhood and understanding, or equal treatment for segregated people.
For King, the term extremism did not have one meaning. Extremism was dynamic and could be either a positive or a negative attribute. He described Jesus as an extremist for love, Amos as an extremist for justice, and Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel. He called Martin Luther an extremist for principles, John Bunyan an extremist for conscience, Abraham Lincoln an extremist for freedom and Thomas Jefferson an extremist for equality (King, 7). Using these examples, he tied extremism to historical figures that have gained widespread recognition as just and righteous men whose ideas and/or policies their contemporaries perceived as extremist. Doing this was King’s way of saying that what society may at first consider to be extreme, may on closer inspection be a positive change.
Extremism isn’t always a negative attribute. King redefined it as nothing more than a measuring stick to judge the level of passion a person has for a cause that they are engaged in. If someone has been labeled an extremist, that doesn’t necessarily mean their cause is wrong or unjust; it simply means that their goal contradicts prevailing societal norms. Considering the contributions to the world of the people King cited as being extremists, extremism can be greatly beneficial. It’s just a matter of how a person perceives what’s being done, so the key is to convince a person that they must engage with a topic, and then to get them to engage with the topic objectively. To do that, King advocated using nonviolent direct action. To be effective, King had to present nonviolent direct action in Birmingham as a form of positive extremism and, more importantly, defend the cause it supported as both universal and just.
Since King’s nonviolent direct action was termed extremism by the Christian leadership and white moderates, he created a case for nonviolent direct action being positive extremism. First, he defined nonviolent direct action as an attempt to create tension in society, but not violent tension. The point of the tension, he said, was to make an issue unavoidable, so that society would be forced to confront it, in much the same way that Socrates used his questioning to try to force a person to confront an idea directly (King, 2-3). He was criticized for pushing the issue, but King felt that this was necessary, since no problem will solve itself just by adding time (King, 3). The plight of Negroes in the United States had been actively ignored, even by the community he thought would be most ready to promote brotherhood and understanding: the white moderate and the leadership of the Christian church (King, 5 & 9). Change requires a catalyst and King intended nonviolent direct action to be that catalyst, not to harm anyone or specifically to cause violence, but to force the public to engage with the topic and examine it critically. When an issue is pushed to the side and isn’t in the limelight, it’s easy to forget about it, or to mentally gloss over the subject and continue accepting the status quo, an attitude that King was firmly against (King, 3).
To universalize the goal of the nonviolent direct action in Birmingham, desegregation, King equated it with the pursuit of justice. Since his audience was primarily Christian, he did this by appealing to Christian morality. He wrote that, “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law” (King, 4). He went on to quote St. Thomas Aquinas, a notable Christian thinker as writing, “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust” (King, 4). King then explained that since segregation distorted the soul and damaged the personality, it was inherently unjust, according to Christian thinking and conceptions of morality (King, 4). He also compared the segregation of society to the separation of man from God, which is a powerful image, considering the goal of Christianity is to reunite with God through righteous action. By appealing to Christian concepts of justice and unification, King legitimized the movement’s goal of desegregation to his audience.
Having defined the issue of segregation as morally wrong and unjust and nonviolent direct action as positive extremism, King was left with the task of engaging the moderate whites and Christians in a way that would imply that inaction was in itself a form of extremism. He did this by defining passivity in the face of an unjust situation as a form of extremism. King began by criticizing town leaders for not agreeing to engage in negotiations with Negro leaders. He also criticized shopkeepers for failing to adhere to previously made agreements regarding racially motivated signage (King, 2). To tackle this problem, King refers to the fact that everything Hitler did in Germany was “legal” (King, 5). This analogy equates the passivity of the white moderates in Birmingham with the (presumably) white moderates in Germany, drawing parallels between the status of Jews in Germany and the status of Negroes in Birmingham. While not a perfect analogy, it catches the attention and gives a very real and tangible example of what can happen when good people do not speak up in the face of oppression and injustice. And, certainly, contributing to the death of six million people through inaction could be interpreted as a passive extremism.
One of King’s main themes in his letter is that sometimes society must be disrupted so that people reach a better understanding of what processes are actually affecting society and how to change them for the better. Having quoted Socrates in his letter and incorporating the idea of risking social disruption in pursuit of the ‘good’, in this case desegregation, it is obvious that King was familiar with the themes of Plato’s work, specifically The Trial and Death of Socrates. One of the themes of The Trial and Death of Socrates is the conflict between maintaining the status quo versus risking social disruption in the pursuit of truth, or the ‘good’. Socrates does not intend to disrupt society to its detriment, but rather to call into question firmly held beliefs for the sake of the betterment of society through a deeper understanding of what justice is. In the same way, King does not intend to disrupt society to its detriment, but rather to call into question firmly held beliefs about segregation for the betterment of society through a deeper understanding of brotherhood.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a very well read and intelligent activist for desegregation. He incorporated successful arguments from historical sources (he also drew from Machiavelli’s philosophy) into his writing and added his own spin, the appeal to Christian values, in a way that blends them perfectly into a rational and convincing argument addressed to his specific audience. He justified his use of nonviolent direct action by redefining the idea of extremism and then identified his cause as just by associating it with Christian morality. Finally, he issued a call to action to the white moderates and Christian leadership by demonstrating that passivity is itself a form of extremist behavior when it leads to severe injustice. King was accused of extremism, so he turned extremism into a tool that could help him achieve his goals.
The following is a short essay I wrote for an undergraduate college class on the history of Islamist political thought:
On June 30th, 2012, Mohammed Mursi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1928, assumed office as the 5th president of Egypt. In modern politics, the Muslim Brotherhood holds the highest offices of power in the state, but it began as a small movement in the port city of Suez with a membership of seven. Today, the Muslim Brotherhood expresses the culmination of decades of Islamist thought and is a diverse movement with members who champion women’s rights and push for greater integration with Christians and other minorities, as well as more conservative, Salafist and Qutbist members.[i]
The shape and expression of Islamist thought has changed dramatically over the years, but the ideology expressed in the Muslim Brotherhood today has its foundation in the political writings of Hasan al-Banna, the man who founded the organization. From an early age, Hasan al-Banna took a strident stance against the British presence in Egypt, Christian missionary activity, and behavior that was deemed un-Islamic. Rather than pursue religious studies, al-Banna became a teacher and was posted at a school in the Suez Canal Zone, where he was appalled by what he saw as the dominance of materialism, secularism, and a trading of Islamic morals for Western decadence. He was also repulsed by the sight of Egyptians being exploited for the economic benefit of foreign powers.[ii]
The problems Egyptian society faced in confronting Westernization and colonial exploitation weighed heavy on Hasan al-Banna’s mind and the only solution he felt was appropriate was a return to Islam. In a letter al-Banna sent to heads of state and other influential people, he said, in regards to Islam: “If we take the nation along this path, we shall be able to obtain many benefits … For then we will construct our lives on our own principles and fundamental assumptions, taking nothing from others. Herein lie the highest ideals of social and existential independence, after political independence.”[iii] From this, we can see that al-Banna rejected Westernization as a system of living, opting instead for Islam as a native, natural, superior and complete way of life.[iv]
Al-Banna left it to other thinkers to flesh out his ideas and focused instead on social welfare programs and expanding the Brotherhood’s membership. However, al-Banna did firmly establish the concept of a dichotomy of Islam versus the “West,” attributing the decline of Muslim civilization to the wholesale adoption of Western values and social norms, and argued for a return to Islamic values as a solution to the social malaise being experienced in Egypt. He presented Islam as an opportunity for Egyptians to throw off the shackles of second-class humanity and reclaim their former glory, the former glory of their Islamic heritage. He also established the important concept of modernity and Islam not being mutually exclusive. A civilization does not have to be “Westernized,” or secularized, in order to be modern. A civilization can be Islamic and modern as well: technologically advanced, socially progressive, but still retaining the values, beliefs, and social norms that make Muslims and Islamic civilization distinct.
While some of al-Banna’s writing emphasizes the rejection of pacific forms of jihad in favor of armed conflict with unbelievers, al-Banna was pragmatic, conciliatory and willing to compromise. For example, while he disapproved of the Egyptian political system, he participated in elections.[v] Other Islamists that followed al-Banna were less forgiving. For example, Sayyid Qutb was decidedly more in favor of violent jihad, earning himself the nickname “The Philosopher of Islamic Terror.”[vi]
Sayyid Qutb was born in Upper Egypt in 1906 and, like al-Banna, began his career as a teacher. He also adhered to al-Banna’s ideology of Islam being the correct path for Egyptians to follow in order to regain their power as a civilization and joined the Muslim Brotherhood. Where Qutb differed was in his stridency and his message of Islam being the only correct lifestyle in any part of the world where Muslims live. He was firmly against any system that gave legislative authority to man and, unlike al-Banna, did not compromise in his ideology. He wrote that “submission to God alone is a universal message which all mankind must either accept or be at peace with. It [a legal framework] must not place any impediment to this message, in the form of a political system or material power.”[vii]
He also believed that establishing this legal framework required more than “verbal advocacy of Islam,” because “the problem is that the people in power who have usurped God’s authority on earth will not relinquish their power at the mere explanation and advocacy of the true faith.”[viii] Qutb did not believe in idly sitting by and hoping that Islam would become dominant in the world of its own accord. He believed that Muslims have an obligation to actualize proper Islamic governance through action. He wrote, “… knowledge is for action… the Qur’an was not revealed to be a book of intellectual enjoyment, or a book of literature or art, fables or history… Rather, it was revealed to be a way of life, a pure mode of being from Allah.”[ix] Combined with Qutb’s idea of a single, true version of Islam, this concept of bringing about God’s law on earth through action contributed to the rise of violent jihad.
Building on Sayyid Qutb’s ideology, Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salam Faraj advocated the jihad of the sword as the only legitimate interpretation of jihad, dismissing the greater jihad of internal struggle against sin as a fabrication meant to pacify the Muslim masses.[x] Like Qutb, Faraj saw (Western) modernity as a condition of moral bankruptcy, and as an infection that was destroying the ummah from within.[xi] In 1981, using his reworked definition of jihad, Faraj published a collection of justifications for violent jihad against un-Islamic rulers in a pamphlet called al-Farida al-Gha’iba (The Absent Duty). A few months later, the militant group that Faraj belonged to, Jama’at al-Jihad, planned and executed an assassination of President Anwar Sadat, a secular leader intent on rapid modernization.
The debate over Islam and how it relates to government in Egypt continued into the 1990s, with two opposing views being presented by Yusuf al-Qaradawi in Min fiqh al-dawla fi’l-Islam and ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman in The Present Rulers and Islam: Are They Muslim or Not? Qaradawi argued that democracy is compatible with Islam and wrote that “A call for democracy does not necessitate a rejection of God’s sovereignty over human beings.”[xii] He explains that Islam contains elements of democracy and uses role of an imam as an example. He says that an undesirable prayer leader may be removed, which is a precedent for the removing of an undesirable governmental leader, which in turn is an expression of democracy. The people select who will rule over them. Qaradawi argues that democracy is the best form of government for Muslims and it shouldn’t be rejected simply because it originated outside of Islam. It should be incorporated, with useful elements being retained and the rest being discarded.[xiii]
‘Abd al-Rahman, on the other hand, advocated the rejection of any ruler that was not in full compliance with the concept of Islamic governance as expressed by Sayyid Qutb, even to the point of causing civil war. He wrote that fitna (civil war), though a serious issue in the Muslim ummah, is preferable to being ruled by an un-Islamic ruler, and that “We would not, in fact, consider the resulting social discord [from eliminating an un-Islamic ruler] to be fitna at all; rather we would regard it as a struggle for reform because its ultimate aim would be the elevation of the Truth, the uprooting of corruption, and the reaffirmation of Islam.”[xiv] For al-Rahman, whether or not to use violence is not a question, but rather a necessity, against any form of rule that is not compliant with the shariah and places legislative authority in the hands of man. The removal of the leader should be immediate, or the people will be just as guilty of shirk as the leader.
Islamist thought in Egypt has branched out into a number of different schools of thought, from extremists who advocate violent jihad and a return to the fundamentals to those who try to reconcile Islam with democracy. The common thread that holds them all together is their belief that the future lies in the Quran and man’s obedience to Islam and God’s law as a way to reestablish the power and dignity of Muslims. With the recent political upheaval in Egypt and the coming to power of a Muslim Brotherhood member, Islamists may finally have the opportunity to realize some of their ideals. Mohammed Mursi’s ascension to Egypt’s presidency is a remarkable event and Hasan al-Banna’s surving brother, Gamal al-Banna, believes the election would have pleased his brother, because “it was God’s will.”[xv]
[ii]. Roxanne L. Euben and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 50.
[iii]. Euben and Zaman, Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought, 58.
[xv]. “How Muslim Brotherhood went from 7 members to Egypt’s presidency.”
Bibliography
Euben, Roxanne L., and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, . Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
The Cloisters is the medieval art branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, located in Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan. The building that houses the galleries is an amazing conglomeration of multiple monasteries from Europe that were crated up, shipped here to New York, and then reconstructed on site using a mix of original and modern materials. The attempt was well done and walking through the Cloisters feels like walking through an old monastery. There’s a main chapel, a smaller chapel, gardens and exhibit halls. The gardens are full of growing herbs and plants that were used during the medieval period, from nightshade to hops.
Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog 
