REVIEW OF
Zahra Ayubi. Gendered Morality:
Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society .New York, NY:
Columbia University Press, August 2019. 336 pages. $35.00. Paperback. ISBN
9780231191333.
Unedited version .To appear in Reading Religion
By: Dr. Adis
Duderija, Senior Lecturer in the Study of Islam and Society, Griffith
University
a.duderija@griffith.edu.au
Over the last
few decades a number of important scholarly discussions on the highly gendered ( in a patriarchal sense) nature of Islamic intellectual
tradition have been written but whose focus primarily has been on
the Islamic legal tradition (fiqh) (
e.g. K.Ali, A. Chaudhry, A.Mahellati ) and to a lesser extent Qur’anic commentary (tafsir) ( e.g. K. Bauer , A.Geissenger). Ayubi’s
remarkably well written and comprehensively referenced book provides further
evidence of the same dynamics at play in the context of exploring three most
influential writers of the akhlaq
(Islamic philosophical ethics) genre from the
classical period , namely Abu
Hamid Al-Ghazali ( d.1111 CE), Nasir ad-din Tusi ( d.1274) and Jalal al-din
Davani ( d.1502). Ayubi ‘s major argument in the book is that “the Muslim
ethicists’ gendered understandings of existence and metaphysics compelled them
to produce virtue ethics that are rooted in inequality and, as such, are unsustainable
by the standards of their own ethics” (p.6). In other words, Ayubi uncovers a
paradoxical tension between the classical Muslim ethicists’ deeply patriarchal,
androcentric and at times misogynistic approach to virtue ethics and their
professed metaphysical commitments premised on ideas of (Divine) justice and
human equality.
Ayubi identifies
and analyses expertly three central themes that animate gender-related
discussions in the classical akhlaq
genre, namely: i.) “tension between hierarchical power and justice”; ii.) “the
construction of instrumental femininity in relation to rational masculinity,
and iii.) the construction of elite masculinity in the context of homosocial
relationships among men” (p.7).
She delves
deeply into the classical Muslim ethicists’ discussions of virtue ethics of the
self, marriage and society and painstakingly deconstructs the assumptions that
underpin their concepts of masculinity and femininity informed as they are by
highly gendered and patriarchal Islamic cosmology. Here we see many parallels
with discussions found in other genres of Islamic interpretive tradition such
as tafsir and fiqh from the classical period that associate masculinity
conceptually with, among others, religious and political authority and
rationality and femininity with not only
the lack of these but also with a highly
potent and socio- morally eroding sexuality that is to be tightly controlled
and supervised by men through a variety of mechanisms and practices ranging from
strict gender segregation to veiling, to curbing of women’s freedom of movement
and the placing of strong limits on decision-making power of women in relation
to both public and private matters.
The book’s
most original part is its final, fifth chapter (which also is its conclusion) that
is titled “The Prolegomenon to Feminist
Philosophy of Islam”. Here Ayubi provides a systematic and very erudite
analysis of how to move beyond the patriarchal Islamic philosophical ethics and
the various pre- suppositions underpinning it that she described so lucidly in
the first four of the book’s chapters. In this chapter Ayubi draws superbly
upon both authorities on feminist philosophy of religion in general
(e .g.Irigary, Daly etc.) and what we could term the proponents of Islamic feminism specifically ( Shaikh, wadud
etc.). Ayubi identifies and brilliantly discusses four “interrelated
philosophical problems” posed by “male-centred akhlaq” that include: “i.) the the problem of having an exclusionary definition of humanity based on fixed hierarchy
of rational capacity; ii.) the problem of patriarchal, and therefore unjust
notions of khilafah(vicegerency) ; iii.) The problem of the emergence of new
hierarchies in addressing exclusion on the basis of gender in akhlaq; and iv.)
the problem of individual refinement though the utilization of women and
nonelite others. “(p.253). In this
respect she argues that feminist philosophy-based approaches to religion can play
an important role in “exploring possible resolutions” (p.254). More
specifically, Ayubi argues for a redefining of rationality and the need for a
“liberating reason” (p.254) that has an inclusive, non-gender hierarchical and
non-gender exclusive view of humanity. For Ayubi, like for other feminist-minded Muslim scholars such as wadud and Barlas, the conceptualisation of a
non-patriarchal and therefore non-gendered
concept of khilafah is also
necessary to move beyond the limits of elitist male-centric akhlaq. Furthermore,
given that patriarchal Islamic philosophical ethics is built on “interlocking hierarchies”
( i.e. gender and class ) ( p.270), therefore, the need to incorporate insights from the academic study of intersectionality in general and black feminist
philosophers, in particular, is identified by Ayubi as very useful for the
purposes of developing the feminist philosophy of Islam. Finally, Ayubi ably argues
that to move beyond the male centred akhlaq it is also important to
problematise its very goals , which, as
noted above, are based on the logic of
instrumentalization of non-elite men for elite men’s ethical
refinement(p.275).
In my
engagement with gender issues in Islam I have similarly argued that to dislodge
patriarchal interpretations of the Islamic intellectual tradition it is important
to develop a gender egalitarian paradigm that would involve the following: i.)
Engendering alternative conceptualisations of gender cosmologies based on reciprocal
and non-hierarchical relationships; ii.) Rethink the very nature and the
conceptual relationship between masculinity and femininity where masculinity
and femininity are not considered as binary opposites( disguised in form of gender complementary terminology ); and iii.) Reconceptualization
of the concept of honour itself that delinks the honour of men from the sexual
or sexually-perceived behaviour of ‘their women-folk’(Duderija, 2019).
I think that
Ayubi’s book under review has a lot to offer in relation to the first two
points in particular but that it lacks theoretical insights in relation to the
role of patriarchal understandings of female sexuality and male honour that
inheres in male-centred akhlaq. In this author’s view these ideas and concepts
are one of the lynchpins that underpin the patriarchal expressions of the
Islamic tradition which must be deconstructed and newly reconstructed for any
future viable feminist philosophy of Islam.
I recommend
this book to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and academics working in
the broad field of Islam and Gender, Gender and Religion and more specifically
feminist approaches (philosophy) to religion/ Islam.
References:
A.Duderija.
2019. “Using Progressive Muslim Thought
to Take Down Patriarchy”, Tikkun
34(1):96-102. ( free PDF)
