Women & Islamic Cultures Family, Law and Politics

for women and have even performed the ceremony
publicly in Turkey. In Algeria, the government-
sponsored council of zàwiyas is contemplating giv-
ing more recognition and encouragement to female
participation and such trends seem likely to in-
crease with shifting concepts of gender roles in the
public space, whether emerging from Islamist or
modernist interpretations of Islam.
Elite women from the Muslim world might join
one of the modern urban †arìqas that offer more
individualistic concepts of spiritual growth, for
example, the DhawqìShàh branch of the Chishtì
ÍàbirìOrder based in Karachi, Pakistan. Research
on urban elite women of Damascus documents
how they constitute their own Sufi circles within
the Naqshbandìmovement, led by Mufti A™mad
Kaftàrù, under the direction of his daughter,
Shaykha Wafà±. Böttcher (1998) reports attendance
of between one and two thousand women at dhikr
sessions sponsored by this group in the Abùal-Nùr
mosque in Damascus. Sub-groups of women of this
movement sponsor more “select” dhikrs for initi-
ates in private homes. This form of Sufi teaching
stresses Islamic knowledge and piety and is encour-
aged as part of a Syrian state-sponsored Sunnì
re-Islamization in which Sufism is a preferred alter-
native to political activism. Other groups of Syrian
Sufi women are necessarily less overt in their activ-
ities. Contemporary transnational Sufi movements
such as the Naqshbandì£aqqànis of Shaykh
NàΩim draw participation from Muslim elites in
Malaysia and Egypt, including many women.
The current situation of female Sufis in Iran must
be viewed in the context of Sufism in general. While
intellectual Sufism representing a cultural heritage
of art and poetry is supported by the Islamic
Republic, a fairly systematic repression of practical
Sufism has occurred, including the persecution and
surveillance of known Sufis and the closure and
confiscation of Sufi centers, thereby restricting the
involvement of both men and women.
In Uzbekistan’s Ferghana valley, Sultanova
(1999) finds females known as the Otin-oy (otins),
usually the relatives of male religious leaders, sus-
taining a “domestic” or “reflected” Sufism that
includes poetry, chanting, dhikrs, and even a Qàdi-
riyya dance. These sessions, in general, celebrate
life cycle rituals and religious holidays, rather than
being specifically †arìqa-based practices. Her
observation is that the importance of such female
religious activity was enhanced under communist
rule since it was less susceptible to persecution than
more usual forms of Sufism. Its fate in the post-
Soviet context remains to be seen.
In modern Turkey neo-Sufi movements such as

turkey, south asia, central asia, afghanistan, iran, the caucasus, and the arab east 769

the Sait Nursi and Gülen communities draw inspi-

ration from some aspects of Sufism and attract

large numbers of female members. In these move-

ments the philosophical elements of Sufism and an

activist agenda have replaced traditional forms of

initiation, †arìqaidentity, and charismatic trans-

mission; female leadership, however, is not yet

significant.

The fact that much of our information about

contemporary Sufi practice comes from studies

written by Western or Western trained researchers

leads to the translation of “inner” experiences

of Sufi women into modern psychological or an-

thropological systems. For example psychologist

Michaela Özelsel (1996) documents her 40-day

Sufi retreat under a Turkish shaykh in diary form,

ultimately invoking Jungian theory as an interpre-

tive framework. Anthropologists have analyzed the

dynamics of the intersection of emotion and

embodiment in contemporary South Asian females

affected in varying ways by Sufism (Werbner

1998). Female public intellectuals such as Ayçe Sasa

in Turkey and Karìmàn £amza in Egypt represent

cases of secularized Muslim women turning to

Sufism in a quest for emotional stability and

religio-cultural authenticity.

These literary and theoretical developments pro-

vide material that was absent or difficult to access

in more traditional Sufi writings, and in some cases

an entry into specifically female Sufi experience.

Ràbi≠a al-≠Adawiyya (d. ca. 801) also known as

Ràbi≠a of Basra is one of the best-known early

Sufis, largely because of her biography in

Tadhkirat al-awliyà±, by Farìd al-Dìn ≠A††àr

(d. 1230). Her inclusion among the “ranks of

men” represents a state of mystical unity that

transcends any class or gender distinctions. She

is also portrayed as besting male saints and

authorities of her time through her sincerity,

spiritual insight, and level of intimacy with the

divine beloved. Among famous anecdotes con-

cerning Ràbi≠a are the Ka≠ba’s coming out to

meet her and her desire to burn paradise and

extinguish hell so that love for God would be

sincere, removed from extrinsic fears and

expectations of punishments or rewards.

Bibliography

S. B. Abbas, The female voice in Sufi ritual. Devotional

practices of Pakistan and India, Austin, Tex. 2002.

L. Ahmed, Women in Muslim history, New Haven, Conn.

1992.

Ibn al-≠Arabì, Sufis of Andalusia. The “Rùh al-Quds” and

“al-Durrat al-fàkhirah” of Ibn ≠Arabì, trans. and intro.

R. W. J. Austin, foreword M. Lings, London 1971.