Read A Quiet Revolution Online
Authors: Leila Ahmed
Tags: #Religion, #Islam, #History, #Social Science, #Customs & Traditions, #Women's Studies
Chapter
5
. The
1980
s
Ghada Hashem Talhami,
The Mobilization of Muslim Women in Egypt
(Gaines- ville: University Press of Florida,
1996
),
61
.
See, for example, Nawal el-Saadawi, “An Unholy Alliance,”
Al-Ahram Weekly Online,
no.
674
, January
22
–
28
,
2004
.
Quotations and references in this and the following five paragraphs are from Ar- lene Elowe Macleod,
Accommodating Protest: Working Women, the New Veiling, and Change in Cairo
(New York: Columbia University Press,
1991
),
40
,
109
–
13
,
119
–
21
.
Quotations and references in this and the following five paragraphs are to
Macleod,
Accommodating Protest,
38
–
39
,
110
–
15
,
119
–
23
.
Quotations and references in this and the following seven paragraphs are from Macleod,
Accommodating Protest,
40
–
41
,
108
–
9
,
113
–
15
,
121
,
154
–
55
.
Sherifa Zuhur,
Revealing Reveiling: Islamic Gender Ideology in Contemporary Egypt
(Albany: State University of New York Press,
1992
),
76
.
Zuhur,
Revealing Reveiling,
116
.
Zuhur,
Revealing Reveiling,
1
,
9
,
15
,
116
.
Quotations and references in this and the following paragraph are from Zuhur,
Revealing Reveiling,
71
,
77
,
104
,
117
–
120
.
Zuhur,
Revealing Reveiling,
12
,
20
,
73
,
116
.
Quotations in this and the following paragraph are from Zuhur,
Revealing Reveiling,
74
,
120
.
Zuhur,
Revealing Reveiling,
5
,
8
.
Laura Deeb’s study of women of the Hezbollah during the
1990
s vividly docu- ments a similar process under way in Lebanon.
An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Pub- lic Piety in Shi’i Lebanon (
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press),
2006
.
Chapter
6
. Islamist Connections
Gilles Kepel,
Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh,
trans. Jon Rothschild, With a New Preface for
2003
(Berkeley: University of California Press,
2003
),
142
–
43
. See also Ghada Hashem Talhami,
The Mobilization of Muslim Women in Egypt
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida,
1996
),
53
.
Kepel,
Extremism,
142
–
43
.
Gilles Kepel,
Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam,
trans. Anthony F. Roberts (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
2000
),
82
.
Talhami, in
Mobilization,
says, regarding the bus service and the separate seat- ing, that “female students . . . welcomed the Islamist assistance” (
53
).
Kepel,
Extremism,
144
.
Material cited in this and the following three paragraphs is from Kepel,
Ex- tremism,
145
–
46
,
152
–
53
.
Sherifa Zuhur,
Revealing Reveiling: Islamic Gender Ideology in Contemporary Egypt
(Albany: State University of New York Press,
1992
),
127
.
Quotations in this and the following paragraph are from Talhami,
Mobiliza- tion,
47
–
48
,
52
.
Talhami,
Mobilization,
49
,
52
. See also Carnegie Papers,
Women in Islamist Movements: Towards an Islamist Model of Women’s Activism,
Omayma Abdellatif [
sic
] and Marina Ottaway, Carnegie Middle East Center, no.
2
, June
2007
; Carnegie Papers,
In the Shadow of the Brothers the Women of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood,
Omayma Abdel-Latif [
sic
], Carnegie Middle East Center, no.
13
, October
2008
.
Talhami,
Mobilization,
128
,
66
.
Raymond William Baker,
Islam Without Fear: Egypt and the New Islamists
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2003
),
96
–
97
.
Material cited in this and the following four paragraphs is from Talhami,
Mo- bilization,
65
,
70
–
3
,
134
,
145
.
Material cited in this and the following three paragraphs is from Talhami,
Mo- bilization,
55
,
125
,
134
,
138
.
Linda Herrera, “Islamization and Education in Egypt: Between Politics, Cul- ture, and the Market,” in
Modernizing Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in Europe and the Middle East,
ed. John L. Esposito and François Burgat (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press,
2003
),
167
–
88
. Herrara notes that schools for the middle and upper classes also increased religious teaching.
Herrera, “Islamization and Education,”
172
.
Carrie Rosefsky Wickham,
Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt
(New York: Columbia University Press,
2002
),
110
; Herrera, “Islamiza- tion and Education,”
172
.
Kepel,
Jihad,
276
–
78
.
Wickham,
Mobilizing Islam,
155
.
Fauzi Najjar writes that “Foda considered himself a true Muslim.” Najjar in “The Debate on Islam and Secularism in Egypt,”
Arab Studies Quarterly
18
, no.
2
(Spring
1996
).
Baker,
Islam Without Fear,
83
–
84
,
53
.
Douglas Jehl, “Mohammed al-Ghazali,
78
, an Egyptian Cleric and Scholar,”
New York Times,
March
14
,
1996
.
Najjar, “Debate on Islam and Secularism in Egypt.” See also Gregory Starrett,
Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt
(Berke- ley: University of California Press,
1998
),
210
–
11
; and Baker,
Islam Without Fear,
190
–
91
. Baker portrays al-Ghazali more favorably, claiming that his testimony was distorted by others. However, al-Ghazali does bear partial responsibility, Baker argues, “because he failed to elaborate his views” (
190
–
91
).
In fact, in a book entitled
Bitter Harvest: The Muslim Brotherhood in Sixty Years,
Ayman al-Zawahiri would launch a fierce attack on the Brotherhood, accusing its lead- ers of blasphemy on the grounds that they “substituted the democracy of the dark ages to God’s rule and gave up on jihad.” Such Islamists, he argued, had “sold out their faith to the corrupt secular regimes in return for . . . participation in the socio-political process.” Cited in Fawaz A. Gerges,
The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global
(New York: Cambridge University Press,
2005
),
111
.
Kepel,
Jihad,
289
. See also Azza Karam, ed.,
Transnational Political Islam: Re- ligion, Ideology, and Power,
foreword by John Esposito (London: Pluto,
2004
),
7
.
Quotations in this and the following paragraph are from Wickham,
Mobiliz- ing Islam,
103
,
122
.
The article reads more fully: “From inside the private mosque, the light of re-
ligious extremism beams forth... after the militant groups dominate the mosques, they plan inside them to assassinate prominent people and publish propaganda, execute ter- rorist activities, and store weapons.” “From Here Extremism Begins: The Independent Mosques,”
Akhir Sa‘a,
December
2
,
1992
,
12
–
13
, cited in Wickham,
Mobilizing Islam,
103
,
154
–
55
.
Quotations in this and the following seven paragraphs are from Herrera, “Is- lamization and Education,”
173
–
80
.
Starrett,
Putting Islam to Work,
90
.
Quotations in this and the following three paragraphs are from Wickham,
Mo- bilizing Islam,
2
–
3
,
15
,
26
.
John L. Esposito,
Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam
(New York: Oxford University Press,
2002
),
92
–
93
.
Quotations in this and the following three paragraphs are from Wickham,
Mo- bilizing Islam,
15
,
125
–
27
.
Quotations in this and the following two paragraphs are from Wickham,
Mo- bilizing Islam,
132
–
33
,
153
,
170
.
Wickham,
Mobilizing Islam,
130
.
Quotations in this and the following three paragraphs are from Wickham,
Mo- bilizing Islam,
128
,
131
,
155
,
171
.
Material in this and the following two paragraphs is from Wickham,
Mobiliz- ing Islam,
x–xi,
171
.
Wickham,
Mobilizing Islam,
172
. One former jihadist who had been in prison would articulate these views particularly succinctly. Kamal Habib explained that he had married a woman he met at university and that they lived simply: “We need very little, live life simply, don’t need fancy cars and apartments and all that. . . . We live very sim- ply, but we don’t feel poor. Society imposes shackles on people; it pressures them to worry about clothes and apartments and money”(
168
). Habib’s prediction was that “the future is with us . . . the neighborhoods, because they did not change when the upper classes began to imitate the west . . . American society is in decline. All societies pass through phases, they rise and fall. Now is a period of transition. Soon Islam will be resur- gent” (
171
).
This and the following quotation are from Wickham,
Mobilizing Islam,
172
–
73
.
An even more recent book based on research on Islamic women in Egypt is
Saba Mahmood’s
Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (
Prince- ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
2005
). As Cynthia Nelson observed in her review, this is a book which engages throughout its five chapters in “a running argument with and against key analytic concepts in liberal thought as these concepts have come to in- form various strands of feminist theory,” and it is to this field that the book makes its most significant contributions. Cynthia Nelson, “‘The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Re- vival and the Feminist Subject,’ by Saba Mahmood,”
Middle East Journal
59,
no.
3
(Sum- mer
2005
):
507
–
10
. With these issues in the foreground, Mahmood seems distinctly less interested in exploring the historical, social, political and religious currents and fierce
internal struggles shaping the local Egyptian scene. See Samah Selim, “Book Review: ‘The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject.’” Jadaliyya, October
2010
: http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/
235
.
Chapter
7
. Migrations
Material in this and the following paragraph is from Kambiz GhaneaBassiri,
A History of Islam in America: From the New World to the New World Order
(New York: Cambridge University Press,
2010
), chapter
6
.
Karen Isaksen Leonard,
Muslims in the United States: The State of Research
(New
York: Sage Foundation,
2003
),
9
.
These are the figures that Sherman A. Jackson, for instance, gives in
Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection
(New York: Oxford University Press,
2005
),
23
. Estimates vary, but overall the relative proportions remain similar, with African Americans and Asian Americans in the lead.
I have heard Sulayman Nyang—a Muslim academic and community leader—
among others make a point of emphasizing this fact in speeches he has given at Islamic conferences, among them, for example, at the ICNA-MAS Annual Convention
2002
: “Islam in North America Challenges, Hopes and Responsibilities,” July
5
–
7
,
2002
, Balti- more.
GhaneaBassiri,
History,
chapter
6
. GhaneaBassiri writes also, “Of the
181
,
036
im- migrants who came to the United States from Muslim-majority countries between
1966
and
1982
, for example,
20
percent came under the category professional and technical workers and
56
percent came as the dependents of these individuals.”
See GhaneaBassiri,
History,
chapter
6
. Also, writing on Islam in America and de- scribing Islamism and the Islamist activist agenda, Larry Poston writes, “At the same time, even a casual acquaintance with indigenous Muslim communities is enough to convince the unbiased observer that no more than a tiny minority perceives an activist mission as being a religious duty at all.” Larry Poston,
Islamic Da‘wah in the West: Mus- lim Missionary Activity and the Dynamics of Conversion to Islam
(New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press,
1992
),
4
.
Beshir Adam Rehma, “How to Establish an Islamic Center: A Step-by-Step Ap- proach,” in
Let Us Learn: Issues of Your Concern,
ed. Abdel-Hadi Omer (Beloit, Wis.: By the Editor,
1987
); cited in Poston,
Islamic Da‘wah,
79
,
206
.
Gutbi Mahdi Ahmed, “Muslim Organizations in the United States,” in
The Mus-
lims of America,
ed. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad (New York: Oxford University Press,
1991
),
14
.
Poston,
Islamic Da‘wah,
79
.
Ahmed, “Muslim Organizations,”
14
.
Ahmed, “Muslim Organizations,”
14
.
GhaneaBassiri,
History,
chapter
5
, also makes this point, citing Yvonne Y. Had- dad, “Arab Muslims and Islamic Institutions in America: Adaptation and Reform,” in
Arabs in the New World,
ed. Sameer Y. Abraham and Nabeel Abraham (Detroit: Wayne
State University Press,
1983
),
70
. Poston similarly notes that the MSA was “undoubtedly the most activist of the da‘wa organizations in America. Many of the founding members of this agency were members of or had connections to one or the other of two organiza- tions in question and it was through these persons that the ideologies of al-Banna and Maududi were integrated into the goals and philosophies of the organization.” Poston, “Da‘wa in the West,” in
The Muslims of America,
ed. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad (New York: Oxford University Press,
1991
),
129
.
Ahmed, “Muslim Organizations,”
14
.
GhaneaBassiri,
History,
chapter
5
.
GhaneaBassiri,
History,
chapter
5
.
Poston,
Islamic Da‘wah,
79
,
193
. Poston is here citing Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Adair T. Lummis,
Islamic Values in the United States: A Comparative Study
(New York: Oxford University Press,
1984
). He also cites Ihsan Bagby as stating that ISNA “has always sought inspiration and guidance from the intellectual leaders of the modern Is- lamic movement (Maududi, Sayyid Qutb, Hasan al-Banna, etc.)”; see “Is ISNA an Is- lamic Movement?”
Islamic Horizons
(ISNA’s magazine), March
1986
,
4
.
Robert Dannin says that El-Hajj Wali Akram founded the “First Cleveland
Mosque in
1932
, which is now the oldest continuously running Muslim institution in America.” Akram was an African American born in Texas who was converted to Islam
—by Ahmadiyyas—in
1925
. He subsequently turned to orthodoxy. Robert Dannin,
Black
Pilgrimage to Islam
(New York: Oxford University Press,
2002
),
5
,
37
,
102
–
3
.
GhaneaBassiri,
History,
chapter
4
.
Ahmed, “Muslim Organizations,”
15
.
Poston,
Islamic Da‘wah,
104
.
Poston,
Islamic Da‘wah,
105
,
127
.
Material in this and the following paragraph is from GhaneaBassiri,
History,
chapter
5
.
Material in this and the following paragraph is from Hamid Algar,
Wah- habism: A Critical Essay
(Oneonta, N.Y.: Islamic Publications,
2002
),
51
–
52
.
Poston “Da‘wa in the West,”
131
.
Ahmed, “Muslim Organizations,”
15
–
16
.
Ahmed, “Muslim Organizations,”
15
.
Steve A. Johnson, “Political Activity of Muslims in America,” in
The Muslims of America,
ed. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad (New York: Oxford University Press,
1991
),
119
. Bagby gives
962
as the number of mosques in America in
1994
, in
The Mosque in Amer- ica: A National Portrait,
a report from the Mosque Study Project, Ihsan Bagby, Paul M. Perl, and Bryan T. Froehle (Washington, D.C.: Council on American-Islamic Relations, April
26
,
2001
),
3
.
Poston, “Da‘wa in the West,”
129
.
Poston,
Islamic Da‘wah,
106
.
Johnson, “Political Activity,”
111
–
12
.
Leonard,
Muslims in the United States,
88
.
GhaneaBassiri notes that ICNA is not an exclusively South Asian organization but that it is still dominated by South Asians and generally conducts its meetings in Urdu.
History,
chapter
5
.
Johnson, “Political Activity,”
112
.
Hassan Hathout, Fathi Osman, and Maher Hathout,
In Fraternity: A Message to Muslims in America
(Los Angeles: Minaret,
1989
),
3
–
4
,
13
–
15
.
Karen Isaksen Leonard,
Muslims in the United States: The State of Research
(New York: Sage Foundation,
2003
),
102
.
GhaneaBassiri,
History,
chapter
6
.
Pew Report, “Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream,” May
22
,
2007
,
8
and
23
–
25
.
See, for instance, Bagby and Froehle,
Mosque in America.
GhaneaBassiri,
History,
chapter
6
.
This quotation and those in the following paragraph are from GhaneaBassiri,
History,
chapter
6
.
Edward E. Curtis IV, “Islamism and Its African American Muslim Critics: Black Muslims in the Era of the Arab Cold War,” in
American Quarterly
59
, no.
3
(September
2007
):
683
–
709
;
690
.
Curtis, “Islamism,”
692
. See also Jackson,
Islam and the Blackamerican,
49
.
Quotations in this and the following
2
paragraphs are from Curtis, “Islamism,”
692
–
94
.
Curtis, “Islamism,”
693
.
Malcolm X with Alex Haley,
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
(New York: Ballantine,
1999
),
346
–
47
.
Curtis, “Islamism,”
694
–
95
. In an interview on
Democracy Now,
Tariq Ra- madan, the European Muslim intellectual and son of Said Ramadan, noted that after going on hajj Malcolm X came back through Geneva and met with his father. Ramadan also says that the last letter Malcolm X was writing—the paper that was on his typewriter
—was to his father, and that in it he had written, “‘They are going to kill me,’ because he knew this was going to happen, ‘because I came back to the true Islam.’ And in his mind, true Islam meant it’s not black against white. It’s all the people of principles against all the oppressors and colonizers. And at that point, he became very dangerous.”
http://democracynow.org/
2010
/
4
/
9
/once_banned_muslim_scholar_tariq_ramadan. Ac-
cessed May
15
,
2010
.
Curtis, “Islamism,”
695
.
Dannin,
Black Pilgrimage,
58
–
61
,
68
–
69
.
GhaneaBassiri
, History,
chapter
6
.
Jackson,
Islam and the Blackamerican,
49
.
Curtis, “Islamism,”
702
–
3
.
Quotations in this and the following paragraph are from GhaneaBassiri,
His- tory,
chapter
6
.
Jocelyne Cesari,
When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2004
),
188
–
90
.