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Similarly, wit h respec t t o t he more dist ant past and t he proc laimed int ent ion of
rest oring "original," "aut hent ic " Islamic ways for women, t he Islamist posit ion is
again problematic. It assumes, first, that the meaning of gender inhering in the
init iat ory Islamic soc iet y and in Muhammad 's ac t s and sayings is essent ially
unambiguous and asc ertainable in some prec ise and absolute sense and that the
understanding of gender artic ulated in the written c orpus of establishment Islam
represents the only possible and, unc ontested understanding of the meaning of
gender in Islam. The evidence reviewed in the preceding pages lends support to
neither assumption, however. The meaning and soc ial artic ulation of gender
informing t he first Islamic soc iet y in Arabia differed signific ant ly from those
informing t he immed iat ely suc c eeding Muslim soc iet ies, inc luding most part ic ularly
those of the soc iety that c ontributed c entrally to the artic ulation of the founding
inst it ut ional, legal, and sc ript ural disc ourses of dominant Islam – Abbasid Iraq. The
meanings of gender spec ific to Abbasid soc iety and the distinc tive meaning that the
notion "woman" ac quired in that soc iety (a soc iety in whic h the traditions of a
number of religions and c ultures, inc luding the Judaic , Christian, and Iranian,
blended inextricably and were absorbed into Islamic thought) were inscribed into
t he lit erary, legal, and inst it ut ional produc t ions of t he age – productions that today
constitute the founding and authoritative c orpus of establishment Muslim thought.
T he androc ent ric and misogynist biases of t his soc iet y affec t ed in part ic ular t he
different weight given to the two divergent tendencies within the Islamic message.
As I argued earlier, even as Islam inst it ut ed, in t he init iat ory soc iet y, a hierarc hic al
struc ture as the basis of relations between men and women, it also preac hed, in its
et hic al voic e (and t his is t he c ase wit h Christ ianit y and Judaism as well), t he moral
and spirit ual equality of all human beings. Arguably, therefore, even as it instituted
a sexual hierarc hy, it laid the ground, in its ethic al voic e, for the subversion of the
hierarc hy. In the Abbasid c ontext, the regulations instituting a sexual hierarc hy
were given central emphasis while t he et hic al message st ressing t he equalit y of all
human beings and the importanc e of justic e went largely unheeded and remained,
with respec t to women, essentially unartic ulated in the laws and institutions that
were now formulated.
Unheeded by the dominant c lasses and by the c reators of establishment Islam,
that ethical voice was, in contrast, emphasized by some often-marginal or lower-
c lass groups who c hallenged t he dominant polit ic al order and it s int erpret at ion of
Islam, inc luding it s c onception of the meaning of gender and the arrangements
regarding women. From the start, the interpretation of the meaning of gender in
the dominant soc iety and other key issues, suc h as the proper politic al and soc ial
organizat ion of Muslim soc iet ies, were contested. Establishment Islam's version of
the Islamic message survived as the sole legitimate interpretation not because it
was the only possible interpretation but because it was the interpretation of the
polit ic ally dominant – those who had the power to outlaw and eradicate other
readings as "heret ic al."
It is t his t ec hnic al, legalist ic est ablishment version of Islam, a version t hat
largely bypasses the ethical elements in the Islamic message that continues to be
polit ic ally powerful t oday. But for t he lay Muslim it is not t his legalist ic voic e but
rather the ethical, egalitarian voice of Islam that speaks most clearly and
insist ent ly, It is bec ause Muslim women hear t his egalit arian voic e t hat t hey oft en
dec lare (generally to the astonishment of non-Muslims) that Islam is nonsexist.