I read a very good comment by a lady named Northern shewolf on Big Pharoah’s post regarding the harrassment that happened in Cairo recently. I agree with her 100% and I thought I would copy and paste what she said
”As I see it in this instance, the whole salafist/wahhabi agenda to push women back into invisibility bears a definite responsibility for this, what happened is simply the result of decades of furious sermonizing and ‘fatwa-ing’ by retrograde clerics, which combined with dire social conditions and non existant basic human rights, will always lead in spurts to sudden ‘mass-madness’ or crowd hysteria. There is no rime or reason for these invariably sudden explosions of mayhem, in this case Eid Al Fitr being the pretext, sadly a displacement of a grab-bag of emotions: fervour, anger, desire, excitement, frustration etc… That women were automatically targeted should be no big surprise either to anyone. ME men feel so devalued without respect and honour and for so long now, that in accordance with their cultural imperative, it is easier to fall back on old conceits as the mosque, which they view as the only institution that cares about them, constantly urges them to do. So they pressure their women to cover themselves as a sign that they still have some dignity. But even the most uneducated amongst them know that this is just a device, so whenever tension rises women are a convenient scapegoat. rape is the ultimate show of oppression being the most dehumanizing act a man can commit. Since the Sharia courts are infamous for their idiotic rulings and overall disregard of women’s rights, such horrid scenes will keep on repeating themselves.”
She is right in everything she says. Until the sharia courts start treating women and men as equals, the Middle East and the Islamic world in general will never advance. We need to allow serious Ijithad (which is allowing rules and laws to be changed based on the current time’s needs) before we can even think of improving women’s situation in the Arab world. However the wahabi ideology (which unfortunately has been introduced to Egyptian culture) has closed the door of Ijithad and is insisting on the laws that applied to women 1400 years ago to continue to apply today.
November 1, 2006 at 9:28 pm
This is very interesting. I thought mainly Saudi Arabia has been effected by wahhabism. How has Egypt been affected by it? And what about the other idealogies?
November 1, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Dear Hazel,
I am so proud to be your very first commenter and wish you inspiration and lots of feedback. Your stated aim is right down my very own alley: women’s rights and issues. I do not blog myself, but do comment on occasion but on ME blogs mostly: SaudiShpere, DarkSun, stilettosinthesand, BigPharaoh, Saudi Debate Society, Mahmood’s den and the ever so regretted Religious Policeman. I have had a love affair with the ME since adolescence and has made it a life long study and pursuit. At this point in my life, near retirement, I am working on a survey of dissident blogspots attempting to discern the impact if any, they have on the political culture they are critical of.
I have come to some pretty astonishing conclusions so far just from researching, so time will tell whether or not it is valid material.
I will check you up regularly from now on, and you can certainly count on comments from time to time.
Again all the very best from a sister {;-)
November 2, 2006 at 1:27 am
Dear Northern shewolf
We will have a lot to talk about!
thank you for your comment and your kind words! It is nice to know that you’re intersted in the Middle East and women’s issues
Please leave as many comments as you like. I do not have that many entries since I am just starting to blog, but I am sure my blog entries will become more frequent and more interesting as I go along
Sincerely,
Hazel
November 2, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Anonnymous,
Wahhabism is the form of Sunni Islam as practiced in Saudi Arabia and is a ultra-conservative approach to the faith. It has become the law of the land in KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)when Abdul Aziz Al Saud fought his way into dominance on the peninsula in the early 20th century, acheiving his dominion in 1925.
To bind the various tribes to him and insure the survival of his rule, he made a pact with the Wahhabi clerics of the Nadj (a province in KSA) that they would be the only religious authority (important in view of the fact that the most important Muslim places of pelerinage in both Makkah and Medina are in KSA), and the Al Saud the only rulers of the land.
Salafism was the fruit of the cultural shock experienced by Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian intellectual who went to the USA in 1949 to study. He was appalled by the mixing of sexes in American society and the American culture: popular music, movie, magazines, adverts. etc… All of which he obviously could not handle, so when he got back to Egypt he made it his mission to become the mouth-piece for a total rejection of western values and ideologies, with the awoved goal of turning back to the template of early Islam to ‘reclaim’ all Arab lands under one Caliphate: visions of the great Moorish and Ottoman empires… As you can well imagine, and since Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser was in the 1950s resolutely attempting to acheive modernity, Qutb, who had by then joined the Muslim Brotherhood and had attracted lots of attention amongst the Muslim clergy who approved of him and the political arena where his ideas were anathema, was arrested put on trial in 1954. released in 1964 at the behest of the Syrians, rearrested for plotting the asassination of Nasser and executed by hanging in 1965.
And you also have Shia Islam, which is the practice of Iran (not unlike Protestantism is to Catholicism having been a split from the Sunna after the death of the prophet Muhammad and over his succession), and the greater parts of Iraq as well as many large communities all over the ME, and smaller ones worldwide. You probably remember the Iranian revolution of 1979, it was fueled by the sermons of a highly respected Shiite cleric Ayatollah Khomeni who was exiled for speaking against the Shah’s rule and, of course, that ‘damned modernity’. So again you have an ideology that demands rejection of the West as well as the return to a ‘pure Islamic state’.
These three reactionnary ideologies are the main currents that today have given rise to Muslim extremism: the Taliban who are following Wahhabi clerics, and elsewhere in Palestine, Egypt, Somalia, some European Muslims groups etc… following the Salafist agenda. In the recent Lebanon war, Hezbollah the Shia’s extremist wing displayed its amazing organization and discipline, and were responsible for many bombings all over the world.
All told, there is so much animus and hell fire in the Muslim world today that we all better be vigilant and learn as much as we can in open-minded dialogue with the many Muslims who are just as disgusted with these extremists as we are.
Hope this has answered your query. {;-)
November 2, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Thank you Northern shewolf, I couldn’t have put it better myself