There always seem to be a number of “emergent themes” each year at Kalamazoo. This year, Islamic topics are one of them, along with disability studies and themes of anger and despair. I’ve been keeping an eye peeled for books on Islamic mystical and magical traditions in order to do deep research for some topics that will appear the next Alpennia book I write (i.e., the one after Floodtide). Just as I studied medieval Christian folk-religious and magical practices to give deep roots to the magic in the previous books, I want to have a depth of historic understanding behind the early 19th century practices that I invent for Zobaida. The sessions on history are of less relevance for my novel, obviously, but this one intersected my interest in women’s history.
Session 310: Medieval Arabic Scholarship II: Medieval Arab(ic) Feminisms
Female Agency within the Confines of the Medieval Harem - Maha Baddar
Will focus on Abassid era. Brief definition of who/what the harem was. Explains the dual meaning referring both to the sense within its original culture, and the use by western culture for a mythic interpreted representation. Baddar discusses this dual meaning within Lakoffian conceptual metaphor theory. The patriarchal frame of understanding of “harem” informs the reception of the term/concept even when the women who participate in the system resist those structures. Scholarship of the harem has largely drawn from externally imposed udnerstandings (both western and masculine).
The harem system was not monolithic, expressing itself in various cultures according to the traditions of those cultures, with greater or lesser agency for the women within it. The depiction of the figure of Shaharazade is a good illustration of the differing functions/understandings of the role of the harem, with western depictions focusing on themes of sexuality and decadence.
Culturally-internal descriptions of harem dynamics in the Abassid period show the importance of learning and scholarship for the women’s relative status and value. Intelligence and political acumen was a surer path to power within the court and the harem than purely physical attributes. But evidence for the harem (people)’s intellectual pursuits is hampered by the (male) historians’ practice of omitting reference (or at least details) as part of the cultural framework around the harem (institution).
Examples are given of women of the harem making legal appeals on behalf of others to the caliph, especially those with close familial connections to the caliph. But these types of agency often depended on those personal connections and power could be lost or gained as the political power shifted between ruling men. These influences and shifts are sometimes documented via men’s reactions to them and attempts to interfere with them. It is also clear from these interactions that the theoretical structure of the harem being forbidden to access by all but selected men, was often a social fiction.
Artistic depictions of harems by westerners tended to emphasize physical restriction and sensual service, while Abassid depictions show the women having physical freedom to ride horses and practice archery, as well as emphasizing the women’s intellectual interactions and “service” for the men they were associated with.
The Other Woman in the Arabian Nights: A Different Interpretation - Sally Abed
Paper focuses on Sheherazade’s sister, Dunyazad, who plays a liminal position in the narrative of the 1001 Nights, hiding under the bed as her sister tells her tales. She is part of the framing story to the tales involving the king who marries a new woman every day and kills her the next morning.
Dunyazad’s part, as pre-planned before the marriage--is to prompt her sister for a story every night in order to set up the indefinite postponement of Sheherazade’s execution. Dunyazad then concludes the night’s storytelling by thanking her sister for the story, to which S. response, “That’s nothing to what I would tell you tomorrow.” This prompts the king’s desire to hear more and spare S’s life.
The two of them together create a new framework that de-sexualizes the interaction between S. and the king and shifts it to a verbal storytelling framework. D’s concealment under the bed does not have a precedent in historic culture, although there are related precedents for a special relationship between sisters.
D’s “art of interrumption” creates boundaries and limits to the structure and relationships of the story. As the story goes on, the king begins echoing D’s exclamations of delight and surprise at the story and decides to postpone the execution in longer and longer increments, specifically requesting particular story continuations or completions.
Thus the ongoing conversation is framed as being between S & D, with the king an increasingly active bystander/overhearer. Eventually the king becomes more interactive and even takes on storytelling activities himself.
Later copies of the overall story, as focus shifts to the internal tales, begin to erase Dunyazad’s presence and agency, sometimes becoming merely “someone” that S. talks to.
European translations of the tales presented the contents as “accurate” depictions of middle eastern culture, even above their own personal experiences and observations there. This erases the 1001 Nights as a literary creation, making it a mere “traveler’s tale” type of story. It also erases the agency (within the story) of S & D as creators of that literary tradition. (Examples are given of women who provided the transmission of other women’s scientific and technical achievements. This parallels the interactions of S & D in the literary field.)
(There is a series of images of western art showing the storytelling scene, emphasizing luxurious excess in contrast to the lack of focus on such things in the story itself. There is also focus on the sexualization of Sheherazade, via dress and physical performance.)
Alkhansaa and the Tradition of Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Female Poets in the Arabian Peninsula - Doaa Omran, Univ. of New Mexico
Evidence for around 17 female poets for the era roughtly 5-7th centuries CE. Contemporary male poets considered Alkhansaa among the best, if not the best poet. Her life spanned the pre-Islamic and Islamic eras. Tradition holds that she met with the Prophet and his wife A’ishah.
She used imagery of the eyes being the body. Famous for mourning poems for her brother. Bio: an orphan, married three times but no poems about her husbands. Lost four sons in battle, and again no poems for them.
She uses body parts as a landscape for the world in which she must survive without her brother. Especially the eyes and tears. It isn’t an isolated grief but one constantly connected with details of his life that provide the context/motivation for mourning. There is imagery connecting the eyes with darkness and with natural water phenomena such as rain.
The poem evokes the tradition of professional mourners, but crosses over to a more personal connection. The poet’s body exists primarily as a sensory organ, with focus on eyes, ears, and heart. But her work itself does not focus on herself as a woman or a sexual being.
Some of her contemporaries tried to minimize her talents as limited in scope. When one man said, “You are the best poet among those with [female body parts],” she responded, “I”m also the best among those with testicles.”
Female Intellectual Spaces in al-Andalus - Jessica Zeitler, Pima Community College
(Unfortunately this paper was not presented.)