Knowledge, empowerment and religious authority among pious Muslim women in France and Germany

Muslim World

Volumn 96, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 617-642

  Jouili, Jeanette S ^a,b   Amir Moazami, Schirin ^b  

^a ÉCOLE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALES   (France)

^b EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY VIADRINA   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 58149469509     PISSN: 00274909     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.2006.00150.x     Document Type: Review

References (65)

1. Under the umbrella term of religious instructions, different offers are subsumable, ranging from simple Qur'ānic lessons to a profound study of and hermeneutic approach to the sacred texts.
2. According to a study by Gerdien Jonker (2004) in mosques in Berlin, for example, two-thirds of the young generation of Muslims, benefiting from religious instructions, are female.
3. Mandaville, Peter, Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma (London, New York: Routledge, 2002)
4. or Allievi, Stefano, "Islam in the Public Space: Social Networks, Media and Neo-Communities", in Muslim Networks and Transnational Communities in and Across Europe, eds. S. Allievi and J. Nielsen (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 1-27.
5. See, for example Spuler-Stegemann, Ursula Muslime in Deutschland, Informationen und Klärungen (Herder: Spektrum, 2002)
6. or Altschull, Elisabeth, Le foulard contre l'école (Paris: Seuil, 1995).
7. See Amiraux, Valérie, Acteurs de l'islam entre Allemagne et Turquie. Parcours militants et expériences religieuses (Paris, L'Harmattan, 2001);
8. Bouzar, Dounia, Monsieur, l'islam n'existe pas - Pour une désislamisation des débats (Paris: Hachette Litterature, 2004);
9. Jonker 2004 Jonker, Gerdien, "Vor den Toren: Bildung, Macht und Glauben aus der Sicht religiöser muslitmischer Frauen", http://www.gerdien-jonker.de/pub8.pdf (2004);
10. Venel Venel, Nancy, Musulmanes françaises. De pratiquantes voilée a l'université (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999).
11. On a global scale this is reminiscent of what Charles Hirschkind (Hirschkind Charles, "Civic Virtue and Religious Reason: An Islamic Counterpublic", Cultural Anthropology 16/1 (2001a): 3-34, 3) has labelled the "deliberative" and the "disciplinary" interpretation. In the first approach the role of print and other media technologies is regarded as a means to enable the lay believer to critically engage with religious authorities, becoming herself a legitimate interpreter of the discursive tradition. Meanwhile, in the "disciplinary" approach the dissemination of knowledge is regarded as a new means to objectify the religious discourse and thereby to reaffirm hierarchical authority structures.
12. For exceptions see Roy, Olivier Vers un islam européen (Editions Esprit: Paris, 1999);
13. Peter, Frank, "Islamic Sermons, Religious Authority and the Individualisation of Islam in France", in Religiosität in der säkularisierten Welt. Theoretische und empirische Beiträge zur Säkularisierungsdebatte in der Religionssoziologie (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2006), 303-320.
14. On this point see Peter, Frank, "Individualization and Religious Authority in Western European Islam", Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 17/1 (2006): 105-118.
15. S. Amir-Moazami's fieldwork is based on semi-structured interviews with practicing, and publicly committed, Muslim women, engaged in the Islamische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüs (IGMG), the Verein der Islamischen Kulturzentren (VIKZ) and Anslalt für Religion e.V./Diyanet Isleri Türk Islam Birligi (DITIB) in Germany. In France they were part of a small centre for Islamic instructions, located in Marseille or of informal women's groups, or engaged in the Jeunes Musulmans de France (JMF). All together S. Amir-Moazami conducted 40 interviews, 20 for each country. Jeanette S. Jouili conducted her fieldwork between 2002 and 2003 in Paris and in the region of Cologne/Bonn, as well as in 2005 with women who participated in diverse Islamic organizations with the objective of Islamic knowledge acquisition or dissemination. J. S. Jouili conducted 40 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with both covered and non-covered women, 20 in each country. In Cologne the women, of Turkish and Arabic background, were part of the female organization Begegnungs- und Fortbildungsstätte Muslimischer Frauen e.V. (BFMF), the Institute of Islamology, and the Islamische Hochschulvereinigung (IHV). In Paris, mostly of Maghribi background, they belonged to the Centre de Recherche sur l'Islam (CERSI) and the l'Institut Européen des Sciences Humaines (IESH). All except the BFMF are mixed-gendered centres of Islamic learning and they all can be set into the wider trend towards establishing Islamic organizations which transcend ethnic, linguistic, and, at least for the German case, confessional divisions. Independently from the in-depth interviews, we have both conducted long term fieldwork that consisted of a large scope of participant observation and conversations with various people at the mosques - directors, imams and in particular women, who were in charge of the women's sections. We also attended various meetings, lectures and teaching courses at the organisations we investigated.
16. On this see, for example, Amiraux 2001, op. cit;
17. Bouzar 2004, op, cit. and Jonker, Gerdien, "Islamic Knowledge through a Women's Lens: Education, Power and Belief", Social Compass 50/1 (2003): 35-46.
18. Mahmood has developed a fine notion of piety, which she uses also to engage critically with feminist thinking and, more substantially, with some of the founding principles of normative modernity, in particular individual autonomy. Her notion of piety thus clearly, and maybe even foremost, reveals a counter-conceptual idea, which she frames with politics of "social conventions" (2005: 148), to which self-declared, practising and publicly engaged Muslims have committed themselves. It embodies the self-willed obedience of pious Muslims to religiously prescribed conventions, which Mahmood juxtaposes with concepts of autonomy, deriving from liberal approaches, even those, which admit the social embeddedness of the self, but which are ultimately inscribed in the goal to liberate it from social conventions.
19. See Klinkhammer, Gritt, Moderne Formen islamischer Lebensführung. Fine qualitativ-empirische Untersuchung zur Religiosität sunnitisch geprägter Türkinnen der zweiten Generation in Deutschland (Marburg: Diagonal-Verlag, 2000);
20. Nökel, Sigrid, Die Töchter der Gastarbeiter und der Islam (Bielefeld: transcript, 2002).
21. Ramadan, Tariq, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 84.
22. Lapidus, Ira M, "Knowledge, Virtue, and Action: The Classical Muslim Conception of Adab and the Nature of Religious Fulfilment in Islam", in Moral Conduct and Authority. The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. B. D. Metcalf (Berkely and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 38-61.
23. On this point see Asad, Talal, Genealgies of Religion. Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. John Hopkins (University Press: Baltimore, London, 1993)
24. and Asad, Talal, "Religion, Nation-State, Secularism", in Nation and Religion. Perspectives on Europe and Asia. eds. P. van der Veer and H. Lehmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 178-192;
25. Casanova, José, Public religions in the modern world (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1994).
26. In order to keep the anonymity of our interviewees, we only mention the first letter of their names. N., 35 years, social worker, interviewed by Jeanette S. Jouili in Cologne, 13/05/03.
27. Mahmood, op. cit.
28. Werbner, Pnina, "Political motherhood and the feminization of citizenship" in Women, Citizenship and Difference, eds. N. Yuval-Davis and P. Werbner (London: Zed Books, 1999).
29. Mitchell, Timothy, Colonial Egypt (New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne Sidney: Cambridge, 1988);
30. Shakry. Omnia, "Schooled Mothers and Structured Play: Child Rearing in the Turn of-the Century Egypt", in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed. L. Abu-Lughod (New Jersey, Princeton University Press 1998), 127-169;
31. Amir-Moazami, Schirin and Salvatore, Armando, "Gender, generation, and the reform of tradition: from Muslim majority societies to Western Europe", in Muslim Networks, Transnational Communities and in and Across Europe eds. J. Nielsen and S, Allievi, (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 32-77.
32. Abu-Lughod, Lila, Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, L. Abu-Lughod (New Jersey, Princeton University Press 1998.
33. Shakry, op. cit.
34. Hirschkind 2001a: 11.
35. Ramadan 2004: 73f.
36. Roest Crollius, Ary R., "Mission and Morality. Al-amr bi-l-ma'ruf as Expression of the Communitarian and Missionary Dimensions of Qur'ānic Ethics". Studia Missionalia 27 (1978): 257-284 and Mahmood, op. cit.
37. See, for example, Mahmood, op. cit.
38. One of the primary goals of the Institute of Islamology in Cologne, for example, where some of the interviewees were enrolled, is the training of qualified da'wa workers. In France, the "L'Institut Earopéen des Sciences de l'Homme" or the CERSI (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche sur l'Islam), for example, even offers special classes in Fiqh ad-da'wa.
39. Cf. Amir-Moazami, Schirin, Politisierte Religion. Der Kopftuchstreit in Deutschland und Frankreich (Bielefeld: transcript, 2006. forthcoming).
40. Babès, Leila, L'islam positif La religion des jennes musulmans de France (Paris: Les Editions de l'Atélier. 1997), 138.
41. Mahmood, 2005: 64.
42. See Shakry, op. cit.
43. Leading figures of this discourse were scholars like Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (1838-97) und Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905). Especially Abduh is of particular importance for us, since he combined the propagated reforms in the educational domains with the idea of a renewal of Islamic thought and practice. Their distinction between custom and scripture can be regarded as exemplary, as it has become a model for the discourse on authenticity, kept alive and extended until today.
44. N., 30 years, director of a woman's group in Marseille. Interviewed by S. Amir-Moazami in Marseille, 14/5/01.
45. M., 32 years, housewife and mother of two children. Interviewed by S. Amir-Moazami, the 23/11/2000 in Berlin.
46. U.L., 30 years, initiator of an informal group for Muslim women in Marseilles. Interviewed by S. Amir-Moazami the 20/4/01.
47. Venel, op. cit.;
48. Klinkhammer, op. cit.;
49. Amiraux, 2001. op. cit.;
50. Nökel, op. cit.;
51. Bouzar, op. cit.
52. See Zentrum für Islamische Frauenforschung und Frauenförderung, Ein einziges Wort and seine große Wirkung. Eine hermeneutische Betrachtungsweise zum Qur'ān, Sure 4 Vers 34, mit Blick auf das Geschlechterverhältnis im Islam (Cologne: ZIF, 2006).
53. Karam, Azza, M., Women, Islamism and the State. Contemporary Feminisms in Egypt (London: Macmillan Press LTD, 1998).
54. See Deeb. Lara, An enchanted modern. Gender and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 23.
55. The women's reference to religious authorities may concern the 'founding fathers' of Islamic orthodoxy of the classical age, but also the personalities rendered popular in contemporary mainstream Islam through modern media technology; either those belonging to the class of ulama in the classical sense (e.g. Yusuf al-Qaradawi), but also the more modern preacher types, such as Tariq Ramadan who is better known in France than in Germany, or the by Arabic-speaking Muslims world wide venerated Amr Khaled. In Germany unlike in France, local Islamic celebrities are rather absent, as actually regretted some of our interviewees.
56. The most common English translation of the term is "blemish." When refering to a woman's body, the interpretation is that parts of the body are a blemish which have to be concealed. For an interesting discussion of the different meanings of awra'. see El-Guindi El-Guindi, Fadwa, Veil. Modesty, Privacy and Resistance. (Oxford, New York: Berg, 1999), 140-143.
57. Roald, Anne Sofie, Women in Islam. The Western Experience (London, New York: Routledge, 2001).
58. N., 30 years, nurse. Intel-viewed by Jeanette S. Jouili in Paris, 11/03/05.
59. Hirschkind, Charles, "The Ethics of Listening: Cassette-Sermon Audition in Contemporary Egypt", American Ethnologist 28/3 (2001b): 623-649, 628.
60. Asad 1993: 125.
61. S., 33 years, housewife and mother of three children. Interviewed by Jeanette S. Jouili, 17/12/05.
62. Caeiro, Alexandre, "Transnational 'Ulama, European Fatwas, and Islamic Authority: A Case Study of the European Council for Fatwa and Research", in Producing Islamic Knowledge: Transmission and Dissemination in Western Europe, eds. M. van Bruinessen; S. Allievi (London: Routledge, 2006 forthcoming).
63. A proper analysis should, of course, also take more systematically into account the discursive and institutional settings of the (French and German) majority societies. For example, given different traditions of church-state relationships, different experiences with immigration, and also differing discourses on gender in both countries (as, for example, in Fetzer, Joel S., Soper, J. Christopher, Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004
64. or Koenig, Matthias, "Politics and religion in European nation-states - institutional varieties and contemporary transformations" in Religion and Politics. Cultural Perspectives, eds. B. Giesen and D. Suber (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 291-315), it would be interesting to look in a comparative fashion, whether national discursive traditions matter for the way in which forms of authority are experienced, transformed or maintained among female leadership within the Muslim organisations. What impact has, for example, the French state's interventionist attitude, in the process of institutionalising Islam for women's movements in mosques or organisations? To what extent has, in contrast, Germany's model of church and state co-operation influenced the developments within women's sections in the mosques? To what extent does the institution of laïcité matter for the structures of authority amongst young Muslim women engaged in mosque movements, etc.?
65. Yet, the whole question of women's rights in Islam and the frequent defensive position taken in Islamic discourses in response to Western accusations cannot be understood without accounting for the encounter with Western powers during colonial times. From that time on, the "West" has set the standards by which gender-justice is being measured. In this sense, the evolving dominant Islamic discourse on gender questions, whose ambiguity is also reflected in the narratives of our interviewees, should also be linked to the "Western" norms, even if the modes of reasoning conform to an Islamic "discursive tradition" (Asad) and its specificity and difference is always reaffirmed.