Friday, April 27, 2018

PROFESSOR KHALED ABOU EL FADL’S PREFACE TO MY BOOK


PROFESSOR KHALED ABOU EL FADL’S PREFACE TO MY BOOK : Constructing a Religiously Ideal “Believer” and “Woman” in Islam  Neo-traditional Salafi and Progressive Muslims’ Methods of Interpretation ,Palgrave 2011.


There is a growing number of academic studies on contemporary Islamic thought published in the West each year. Yet despite the sharp increase in books that attempt to study the works of modern Muslim theologians and jurists, only a few of these studies manage to offer original insights on the normative assumptions and choices made by the internal participants to the current Muslim discourse. Fewer still are successful in analytically engaging the internal debates of contemporary Muslims on their own terms without projecting onto these debates assumptions and values that inevitably distort and even misrepresent them. It is the relative absence of sound and thorough scholarship in this critical and timely field that makes this book by Adis Duderija so compellingly necessary.

  This book, which is the fourth in the Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History, is remarkable in its breadth and depth. The author takes on the formidable task of analyzing the thought of the most influential and important orientations in contemporary Islamic thought: what the author calls the neo-traditional and progressive orientations. The author focuses on a pivotal issue that oddly enough has received but scant attention in non-Muslim and Muslim scholarly analysis. In an admirably tight and rigorous exposition, the author investigates the methodologies deployed by the representative participants of each orientation in understanding, narrating, and representing the role and meaning of the Qur’anic text and traditions of the Prophet, his family, and companions. The author carefully and systematically unpacks the methodologies that define how various theological and legal thinkers relate to the Islamic tradition and its role and relationship to the contemporary realities and challenges of the world today. One of the truly valuable contributions of this book is the author’s analysis of the epistemological, hermeneutical, and moral assumptions at the core and foundations of the methodologies employed by the proponents of each orientation. The author ably demonstrates the extent to which normative moral and epistemological assumptions dramatically influence the methodologies of each orientation and indeed, the very attitude and way that they understand, conceptualize, and construct the Islamic tradition and its normative role in the modern world.



 Perhaps the most original and profound contribution of this book is the author’s eye-opening analysis of the ways that the two main orientations have contrasting conceptions or constructions of the prototypical Muslim believer and of the normative commitments expected or anticipated from such a believer. The author also convincingly demonstrates that the imagined and constructed conceptions of “the Muslim believer” have a direct effect upon the adoption of the normative assumptions at the heart of a particular orientation’s methodology in dealing with and interacting with the text. Indeed, this is the first systematic study to explore the intricate and necessary relationship between the theological conception of the believer, as the prototype for the pious and orthodox Muslim, and the methodologies per which the religious text is understood and represented.  This book is a must-read for students of contemporary Muslim thought, and it is also a necessary study for readers interested in the future of Islamic movements, institutions, and the possibilities of reform. 

But beyond the field of Islamic Studies, all readers interested in questions of authenticity, legitimacy, and the construction of religious meaning in the modern world will find the contributions of this work invaluable for any comparative understanding of the role of religious texts in negotiating between, on the one hand, the normative impact of tradition and history, and on the other, the contingencies and imperatives of the present. As this book powerfully demonstrates, stereotypical generalizations about the avowed determinism of Islamic texts or the determinative role of revelation in Islam are to say the least deeply problematic. Like other religious traditions wrestling with the same issues, Muslims struggle to anchor themselves in a perceived orthodoxy and authenticity as they confront and negotiate the numerous challenges of modernity and post-modernity. 

The Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History endeavors to publish works that make truly original and indispensable contributions to understanding the internal micro-discourses and debates taking place within the Islamic tradition. This new study by the gifted young scholar, Adis Duderija, substantially raises the bar for all future studies dealing with the issues of fundamentalism, traditionalism, reformism, and authenticity and progress in Muslim thought. One of the most insightful and even startling contributions of this book is that it analytically and rigorously interrogates the claims of various and disparate Muslim participants that their thought and methodology authentically represents the religious truth of Islam—the religious truth as embodied in the text of the Qur’an and the oral traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. Upon reading this book, no Muslim or non-Muslim researcher will be able to rest with the superficial assumption that either the traditionalists or reformers are more genuinely anchored in the textualist sources of Islam. In my opinion, what makes this book a necessary read for any Muslim or non-Muslim interested in the future of Islam and Muslims is that it convincingly demonstrates the pivotal importance of scrutinizing the interpretive and constructive methodologies of Muslims competing to represent Islamic authenticity. Employing a scholarly methodology that is uncompromising in its objectivity, detachment, and rigor, Adis Duderija demonstrates that there is a considerable gap between dogmatic perceptions of legitimacy and authenticity, and the extent to which the methodologies employed by neo-traditionalists and progressives actually reflect normativities inherent or necessary to the religious foundational texts of Islam. 

At the very least, anyone reading this book will be forced to seriously re-examine their understanding of the dynamics governing the relationship between critical conceptual categories such as orthodoxy, authenticity, tradition, and progress. The author of this book does not determine who authentically speaks for modern Islam. But he does invite Muslims and non-Muslims alike to a serious critical engagement with the value choices and coherence of various participants claiming to represent Islamic normativities in the world today.
 Khaled Abou El Fadl  Los Angeles, California  April 2011
https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9780230120570

Monday, April 23, 2018

Hadith and Gender in the Thought of Sa’diyya Shaikh


Shaikh is prominent progressive scholar who has offered us system­atic non-patriarchal interpretations of the hadith literature. Anchored in a fundamental commitment to justice as a spiritual core of Islam and inspired by a feminist hermeneutic derived from this spiritual core, Shaikh (2004) critiques the implicit androcentric and patriarchal gender ideologies embedded in a selection of hadith found in a traditionally highly esteemed hadith collection, Sahih of Bukhari. She (2012, 26–27) elsewhere terms this approach as a feminist ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ which “exposes discriminatory struc­tures and values embedded within texts emerging from an exclusively male experiential reality”.
Unlike Mernissi, Shaikh does not adopt the methodology of the classical hadith scholars when engaging in an alternative reading of the hadith literature. She writes:

My paper is not concerned with isnad criticism and historical authenticity. In short, I am concerned with approaching the Hadith as a religio-cultural text which provides a mirror into the dominant conceptions of gender and the category of woman within a formative period of the Muslim legacy, as well as the ways in which these become ideologically functional subsequently in defining religious ideals of gender (2004,100).

Importantly, on the basis of a ’hermeneutics of reconstruction’ (2012, 27), she  teases out gender-egalitarian interpretations of the same hadith which run contrary to the dominant one to show “how these texts have potential to not only buttress the functioning patriarchy but also provide alternative liberatory positions of gender within the legacy” (Shaikh, 2004, 99).
As aptly noted by Rhouni (2010, 218) Shaikh “keeps different readings of these hadiths in tension with each other. She affirms the plurality of meaning that the hadiths offer rather than verify their authenticity.”

Shaikh (2004, 99) argues that her approach represents “part of an Islamic feminist approach that destabilizes patriarchal gender constructs and provides alternative approaches to the tradition informed by  a religious commitment to gender justice”. As such it offers counter-narratives to dominant constructions of gender-unjust ideologies. Her method is best described as contextualist and is based on a critical, feminist analysis that is sensitive to the manner in which hadith literature is viewed as a vista through which the reader gains an insight into the competing and contesting gender dynamics during the formative period of the Islamic civilization char­acterized by a tension between the budding Islamic gender-egalitarian ethos and the established and aggressive androcentric Arab culture (Shaikh, 2004, 100). She argues that the strong androcentric model of an ideal human being that permeates classical Islamic thought and that, in contemporary Muslim thought is often taken by many for granted, is contrary to the very core of gender-egalitarian Qur’anic ethics. Based on her contextualist, feminist ‘hermeneutics of suspicion and deconstruction’, Shaikh advocates for an alternative ‘religious anthropology’ of a human person in Islam in “which humanity, male and female, is presented in ways that are holistic, non-hierarchical and egalitarian” (Shaikh, 2004, 107).

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Hadith and Gender in the Thought of Faqihuddin Abdolkodir

Hadith and Gender in the Thought of Faqihuddin Abdolkodir
A contemporary Indonesian progressive Muslim scholar, Kodir is another important contributor to a non-patriarchal approach to hadith literature. Kodir’s starting premise is that classical hadith sciences and principles of Islamic jurisprudence contain useful mechanisms for a contextualist reading of hadith on the basis of which gender-just interpretations of the same can be developed. The contextualist interpretation of hadith for Kodir entails a critical reading of the hadith by means of ijtihad of the text (matn) of the hadith conceived of as a linguistic text that functions within a certain cultural environment.
The hadith texts are historical records. As such, they are intimately connected to the social dynamics of Arab society at the time of the Prophet. Consequently, in light of the fundamentally contextual character of the hadith, a number of scholars have adopted an understanding of the hadith which is informed by the essential purpose of the text and the root problem that it addresses. The meaning inscribed in the literal language of the text is not regarded as definitive and need not be applied in an unconditional manner. In essence then, as
social contexts change, the essential purpose of a hadith should be emphasized rather than its
literal meaning (Kodir,2007,19-20).


If approached as such, Kodir (2013, 176) forms the view that the meanings of hadith can yield a number of different interpretations, some of which are commensurable with gender-just interpretations/meanings.
Adopting this contextualist approach, Kodir (2007, 1–25; cf. 2013) argues that the proper interpretation of hadith is obtained by evaluating them with respect to the original socio-political contexts in which they were embedded and by inquiring into the circumstance behind the emergence of hadith, a classical hadith science known as ‘ilm asbab al-wurud. This is especially so in relation to hadith pertaining to gender issues. In this context, Kodir (2007) states:
The hadith regarding relations between men and women are windows into a particular socio-cultural reality. These texts must therefore be understood to be based on the logic of the historical role they played in furthering justice and the general welfare of specific communities.
(25)
Kodir also makes use of the hermeneutical principle of corroborative induc­tion (istiqra’) to hadith interpretation as a pre-requisite for their proper inter­pretation. In this context, Kodir (2007, xx–xxi) laments the lack of such an approach in traditional scholarship by stating that “in essence, certain hadith and indeed, specific decisions by the Prophet have been typically selectively invoked as authoritative references instead of being examined comprehen­sively and in totality.” An example of corroborative induc­tion (istiqra’) to hadith interpretation can be found in Kodir’s discussion the issue of the veil and women’s private body parts (’awrah).After making reference to and analysing a couple of hadith that suggest that it is religiously ideal that women should always stay at home and that their entire bodies are ‘awrah (Kodir, 20007, 93- 104) Kodir asks as follows:

Did the Prophet ever say that women were creatures that must be kept locked up inside the house? Many records show that in the days of the Prophet, women left their homes to migrate to Medina, go to war, pray and study in the mosque, work, or simply meet their needs Thus, in the time of the Prophet, women were not considered ‘awrah that must stay cooped up in their homes (Ibid,104).

Kodir, therefore, concludes that the majority of the hadith present women at the time of the prophet as leading active and publically visible lives and that the corroborative power of these hadith calls into question the authenticity of those hadith which restrict women to the private sphere or consider women as ‘awrah. Thus, Kodir is of the opinion that hadith texts are to be inter­preted and applied according to the broader transformative spirit that char­acterizes the Qur’an and the hadith as a whole by resorting to a thematic and holistic approach to the interpretation of hadith.
Kodir also applies a maqasid-based approach to hadith texts, arguing that hadith pertaining to gender issues should be read in accordance with their underlying objectives which take form in certain ethico-religious values such as justice, equality, and mercy, understood and conceptualized in ethically objectivist terms. In this context, Kodir asserts that in respect to gender issues, references to the hadith must be approached from the perspective of being aware of the crucial values the Prophet Muhammad’s message entailed, including the oneness of Allah, the equality of all human beings (rich or poor, men or women), justice, and mercy (Kodir, 2007, xxi). The principles of justice and equality in particular play a prominent role in this type of reason­ing and interpreting of hadith (Kodir, 2013, 171). Kodir (2007) laments that this approach to interpretation of hadith is lacking today, as evident from the following quote:
Contemporary interpretations of many [of these] hadith continue to engender inequality and unfairness in the relationship between men and women. This inequality, moreover, violates the most fundamental prin­ciples of the Qur’an and the hadith.
(23)
Kodir acknowledges the long history of androcentric interpretation of hadith that in many contexts continues in the present day but urges for a much more “gender sensitive” that takes into account women’s needs and experiences. 
I believe that we need to re-examine the hadith in this gender sensitive fashion so as to restore the teachings of Islam to their original truth in which women are accorded respect and compassion. Though we often hear ulama and other scholars asserting that Islam has never discriminated against women, that Islam treats women and men equally, we also constantly hear and witness the opposite. In fact, Islamic preachers commonly use the very hadith I have quoted in the preceding chapters as a justification for restricting women’s rights and treating them as subordinate second class citizens. They argue that this inequality and necessary subservience has been ordained by God (Kodir, 2007, 162).



Kodir, therefore, calls for a new ‘interpretive paradigm’ of the hadith that seeks to establish gender relations that are in accordance with the contemporary conceptualiza­tions of gender justice which are also the most truthful reflections of  the fundamental values and teachings of Islam itself (Kodir, 2007, xix). 


Sunday, April 8, 2018

Khaled Abou El Fadl's Approach to the Hadith

Khaled Abou El Fadl's   Approach to the Hadith
Khaled Abou El Fadl (b.1963) is one of the most distinguished scholars of Islamic law today. He is also one of the few progressive Muslim scholars who has fully engaged with the postmodern episteme, post-enlightenment hermeneutics, and literary theory, as well as applied them in relation to gen­der issues in Islam, including the interpretation of hadith pertaining to gender. Much of his Qur’anic hermeneutics and approach to Islamic jurisprudence is in agreement with scholars such as mohsen Kadivar and nasr Abu Zayd , and need not be repeated. However, El Fadl’s work also includes discussions pertaining to (in)determinacy of meaning, ambiguity of textual hermeneu­tics, and the process of meaning derivation as employed, for example, in literary theory and semiotics (which he has applied to both Qur’an and hadith texts) (El Fadl, 2001, 88). El Fadl has systematically engaged in these discussions and has applied them to the issue of women’s rights in Islam. With reference to determinacy of meaning process, El Fadl makes a distinc­tion between ‘authoritarian’ and ‘authoritative’ textual hermeneutics. To substantiate this distinction, El Fadl cites Qur’anic verses upholding the prin­ciple of God’s Sovereignty and Omnipotence, as well as the ontological rela­tionship between The Creator and the created, namely that of the Lord and His vicegerent. In this context, he claims that due to this very hierarchy in the natural order, the human representatives of God on earth can never self-identify themselves with God’s intent or profess to have grasped His Knowl­edge beyond any shadow of doubt or ambiguity – a practice that has, in his opinion, become quite widespread among present-day authorities on reli­gious issues (El Fadl, 2001, 170–177). In this context, he asserts that the prevalent ‘Wahhabo-Salafi’ ‘authoritarian hermeneutics’ is oblivious to the intricate and subtle relationships existing between the author, text, and reader regulating the process of determinacy of meaning of God’s indicators (adilla), and thus is guilty of equating the author’s intent with that of the reader, thereby violating the principles inherent to the Qur’anic weltanschau­ung and its ethico-religious foundation.
In contrast, El-Fadl, proposes a more balanced approach when engaging in the task of interpreting texts in which neither the author’s intent, the language, nor the reader have the upper hand in determining the meaning that he terms ‘authoritative’. It is the balance between these three which upholds the ‘inherent ambiguity’ embedded in the textual sources, thus acting as an anti-authoritarian interpretative measure. He advocates what Umberto Eco (1979) has termed as ‘an open’ (versus closed) interpretation which is capable of sustaining ‘multiple interpretative strategies’. El Fadl terms this ‘authoritative hermeneutics’.
Importantly, El Fadl (2001) applies some of these insights to deconstruct misogynist interpretations of Islamic law as espoused by contemporary Saudi Arabian scholars (whom he refers to at times as ‘puritans’ or ‘Wahhabo- Salafis’), especially those based on a particular approach to and interpreta­tion of hadith literature.
In this context, El Fadl (2005) elsewhere asserts:
The consistent practice of puritans is to collect, publish, and disperse traditions, attributed to the Prophet or the Companions, that are demeaning to women. Such collections act as a foundation for issuing deprecating determinations in regard to women. Muhammad bin ‘Abd al-Wahhab himself, the founder of the Wahhabi movement, set the prec­edent by collecting a group of these women-deprecating traditions and listing them under the subheading “Living with Women.” But these women-deprecating traditions, without exception, are of weak authen­ticity, if not pure fabrications . . . The traditions utilized by the puritans invariably are of a single transmission, which means that the possibility exists that the Prophet actually authored them, but the possibility is remote and far-fetched.
(257–258)
One aspect of El Fadl’s approach to the question of hadith and its authenticity generally is best reflected in the following passage:
The mechanical and nearly mathematical methodology that Ahl al-hadith apply to the hadith and Sunna in light of our modern epistemological knowledge about reality, meaning, fiction, archetypes, symbolism, phenomenology, and especially history is untenable. . . . In fact the oral reports that are commonly titled the books of hadith often construct and narrate a performance – a performance that preserves a memory of the prophet in some form but that also documents the epistemological attitude of early Muslim generations (2014,317).

El Fadl still sees value in preserving and studying this body of knowledge as it can be mined for its historical, theological, ethical, and moral insights but  this process of study ought to be achieved by means of an “epistemological arsenal that is available to us today – not through the epistemological tools that existed more than ten centuries ago” (El Fadl, 2014, 318). El Fadl also forms the view that the traditional Islamic sciences approached this body of knowledge too literally, a feature which contemporary Muslims are, for reasons stated earlier, to avoid at every cost. In this context El Fadl (2014) writes:
the books of hadith are replete with dramatized performances that are
deeply embedded in the epistemological and phenomenological dialectics
of the first centuries of Islam and therefore are not to be understood
as strictly factual. (2014,318)

Apart from this epistemological critique of the hadith body of literature, El Fadl, importantly, has introduced some novel hermeneutical principles in the evaluation of authenticity of the hadith which go outside of those established by the classical hadith sciences and has applied them to argue for gender-just interpretations of Islam.
The concepts of ‘multiple authorship’ and ‘authorial enterprise’ are such an example. According to El Fadl, the term ‘authorial enterprise’ refers to the process of determining to what extent the Prophet’s role in the historical transmission of the report can safely be established. In this context, he argues that when evaluating reports attributed to the Prophet, we need to keep in mind that these reports are a result of what a number of Companions have “seen/heard, recollected, selected, transmitted and authenticated in a non-objective medium”, hence they have multiple authorship. This view is further supported by classical Islamic scholarship’s view of hadith as not being the actual words of the Prophet but recollections and interpretations of the Prophet’s words which (often/sometimes/at times) retained the core meaning by the individuals reporting them. Hence, hadith can be a result of several authors and various collateral influences, each impacting upon both the structure and the meaning of the report. Therefore, in each report, a person­ality of the transmitter is indelibly imprinted, a process he terms ‘authorial enterprise’ (El Fadl, 2001, 88). El Fadl (2014, 316–317) argues that due to this nature of the hadith, “it is virtually impossible to attribute any specific report to a particular person in history, whether the Prophet or any of the early generations of Muslims”. Rather, these reports, which might retain kernels of truth from the Prophet, are more indicative of the memory of the early generations of Muslims and the contesting ideological currents that were prevalent at the time.14
Additionally, El Fadl applies another regulatory mechanism relating to the normative effect of hadith reports. According to this rule, reports having “widespread moral, legal, or social implications” must be of the highest rank of authority and “require [the] heaviest burden of proof” (El Fadl, 2001, 89). When approached with certain morally repugnant but ‘sound’ hadith (from the perspective of classical hadith sciences, ‘ulum ul hadith) that has wide-ranging implications for society, the proof must be the highest otherwise the hadith will not be considered as normative. Lastly, when deal­ing with morally repugnant hadith (e.g. misogynist), as the very last meth­odological resort, El Fadl introduces the concept of a ‘conscientious pause’, which is a faith-based objection to textual evidence based upon the overall understanding of the Qur’an-Sunna weltanschauung and its élan/ethos (El Fadl, 2001, 93). He utilizes these hermeneutical principles to reject the nor­mative nature of misogynistic hadith that are relied on Saudi Arabian schol­ars to deny gender-just interpretations of Islam (El Fadl, 2001).

So , in summary, El Fadl does not discount the potential role of hadith as sources of an  Islamic worldview altogether but he puts in place a number of methodological and epistemological caveats that ought to be applied before assessing their role and worth in informing Islamic beliefs, practices, laws  and ethics.


Tuesday, April 3, 2018

FATIMA MERNISSI AND HADITH


UNEDITED SECTION OF A CHAPTER IN PROGRESS  ON GENDER AND HADITH 

Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan sociologist, was a pioneer of Islamic feminism. Her most relevant work for the purposes of this chapter is her book The Veil and the Muslim Elite in which Mernissi engages in a critical re-reading and critical reassessment of  the authenticity of two misogynist hadith found in Al-Bukhari’s Sahih hadith collection.[1] Mernissi’s  broader thesis is that the egalitarian if not the  feminist message and the persona of the Prophet of Islam has been manipulated  and distorted by the Muslim male (scholarly ) elite. Recognising the importance of hadith on the collective consciousness of Muslims and their societies and especially the detrimental effect that they have had on women’s rights, Mernissi adopts the methodology and the criteria of the classical hadith scholars themselves to cast doubt on the reliability of the transmitters of the following two hadith:

“Those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never know prosperity.” (transmitted on the authority of Abu Bakra )
“the Prophet said that the dog, the ass, and woman interrupt prayer if they pass in front of the believer, interposing themselves between him and the qibla [the direction of Muslim prayer]”( transmitted on the authority of Abu Hurayra).

In relation to the hadith transmitted by Abu Bakra, Mernissi, by consulting the classical biographies of hadith transmitters, not only questions the circumstances under which Abu Bakra remembered this statement but also argues that his character does not satisfy the isnad-based criteria developed by classical hadith scholars in order for the hadith to be considered authentic. As such Mernissi opines that according to the criteria developed by classical hadith scholars themselves Abu Bakra should be considered as an unreliable transmitted of hadith.[2] In this respect she states: “if one follows the principles of Malik for fiqh, Abu Bakra must be rejected as a source of Hadith by every good, well-informed Malikite Muslim.”[3] Thus, for Mernissi, the abovementioned hadith, despite being found in Al-Bukhari’s Sahih collection, is not to be considered authentic and ought not be used as an argument to prevent Muslim women from assuming the highest level of political leadership.

In relation to the second hadith Mernissi takes aim at one of the most prolific hadith transmitters in Sunni Islam, Abu Hurayra. While Mernissi’s strategy in problematising the trustworthiness of Abu Hurayra as a transmitter of hadith is multilayered including strong elements of interpolation (Ghani,2011), we only focus on those aspects that are aligned with classical hadith authenticity criticism. In this respect Mernissi makes note that Al-Bukhari ignored the fact that ‘Aisha, the prophet’s youngest wife, refuted this hadith on the basis that it was only a partial recollection of what the prophet had actually stated.[4] For Mernissi, this is indicative of Al-Bukhari’s own androcentric bias and methodology. As in the case of Abu Bakra, Mernissi ‘s examination of classical biographical works on Abu Hurayra  leads her to conclude that he had a  number of reasons to exhibit a misogynistic attitude including his frequent quarrels with  ‘Aisha.[5]
In both cases, Mernissi uses the methodologies and tools of classical hadith criticism to defend her broader thesis of Islam as a gender egalitarian religion and a Prophet as an early   proponent of Islamic feminism. More specifically, she in a way de-canonises what is widely considered the most authentic collection of hadith among traditionalist Sunnis , that of Al-Bukhari’s Sahih,  in order to open doors for contemporary Muslims as a whole ( and not just the fuqaha)  to develop a more self-reflective and critical attitude toward the “authentic hadith”. In her words:
What conclusion must one draw from this? That even the authentic Hadith must be vigilantly examined with a magnifying glass? That is our right, Malik Ibn Anas tells us. Al-Bukhari, like all the fuqaha, began his work of collecting by asking for Allah’s help and acknowledging that only He is infallible.[6]
Importantly, Mernissi’s approach, like that of other scholars discussed in this chapter,  also implies that, at least at times, [7]the classical hadith sciences  can be employed to ‘subvert from the inside’ the  patriarchal residue that exists  in the Islamic (interpretative) tradition in general and the hadith collections in particular.



[1] Mernissi also engages in a very contextualist reading of the Qur’anic verses on the hijab and the hadith which document the occasions of the verses in question  but since the focus of this chapter is entirely on the hadith this aspect of Mernissi’ book will not be discussed.
[2] Veil,49-61.
[3] Veil,p.53.
[4] A specific Jewish tribe who had this vision of women.
[5] Veil,70-81.
[6] Veil,76.
[7] A number of scholars have criticised  Mernissi’s methodology  on the grounds that there are other instances of misogynist hadith  that cannot be ‘rescued’ on the basis of following the classical hadith criticism sciences. ( Rhouni, 2010.)