Modern Salafism in Bint al-Shāṭiʾ’s Journey to the Ḥijāz

Boutheina Khaldi

doi:10.32350/jitc.132.01

Boutheina Khaldi American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1060-3852

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32350/jitc.132.01

Keywords: Bint al-Shāṭiʾ, pilgrimage, Jihᾱd, Salafism, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, women's education, Zionism

Abstract

Abstract Views: 0

In 1972, the Egyptian literary scholar and Islamic thinker, ʿᾹʾisha ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (known by the epithet Bint al-Shāṭiʾ), published a highly informative account of her pilgrimage journeys, ʿUmra and Ḥajj, respectively, under the title, Arḍ al-muʿjizāt: riḥla fī jazīrat al- ʿArab (Land of Miracles: Journey in the Arabian Peninsula, 1951 and 1972). The article argues that Bint al-Shāṭiʾ’s pilgrimage account should be read in light of the political and economic changes that the Arab and Islamic world was undergoing at that time. Western Imperialism, and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and its aftermath, gave more impetus to Islamic revivalism, and Bint al-Shāṭiʾ was one of its proponents. Her oeuvre on Islam and anti-Zionism attests to her revivalist project. As a Salafist thinker well versed in history, Bint al-Shāṭiʾ advocates a return to the original Islam. Only through that return to the Qur’ān and Sunna and strong devotion to the umma can Muslims regain their strength and defeat the State of Israel. Bint al-Shāṭiʾ uses the communal aspect of pilgrimage to readdress the concept of Jihᾱd that should not only be confined to Ḥajj and ʿUmra, but equally performed against social and political injustices, such as the marginalization of women and the Israeli aggression against Palestinians. The article thus contends that Bint al-Shāṭiʾ’s pilgrimage narrative is a key component of her commitment literature.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, ʿᾹʾisha. Arḍ al-Muʿjizāt: Riḥla fī Jazīrat al-ʿArab [Land of Miracles: Journey in the Arabian Peninsula]. Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1973.

—. “al-Asbāniyyāt fī l-Madrasa wal- Bayt” [Spanish Women at School and Home]. Al-Hilāl 12 (1947): 125-29.

—. Aʿdāʾ l-Bashar [Enemies of Humanity]. Cairo: al-Majlis al-Aʿlā lil-Shuʾῡn al-Islāmiyya, 1968.

—. Turāthunā Bayna Māḍin wa Hāḍirīn [Our Heritage: Past and Present]. Cairo: Maʿhad al-Buḥῡth wa-Dirāsāt al-ʿArabiyya, 1968.

—. Maʿa l-Muṣṭafā [With the Prophet Muhammad]. Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabῑ, 1972.

—. al-Isrāʾῑliyyāt fῑ l-Ghazw al-Fikrῑ [Judaica in Intellectual Imperialism]. Cairo: Maʿhad al-Buḥῡth wal-Dirāsāt al-ʿArabiyya, 1975.

—. al-Shakhṣiyya l-Islāmiyya: Dirāsa Qurʾāniyya [The Islamic Character: A Qur’ānic Study]. Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm lil-Malāyῑn, 1986.

—.ʿAlā l-jisr Bayna al-Hayāt wal-Mawt [On the Bridge. Between Life and Death]. Cairo: Al-Hayʾa l-Miṣriyya l-ʿᾹmma lil-Kitāb, 1986.

—. “Islam and the New Woman.” Translated by Anthony Calderbank. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 19, (1999): 194-202.

—. “The Islamic Conception of Women’s Liberation.” Translated by Nazih Khater, al-Raida 125 (2009): 37-43.

Amῑn, Qāsim. Taḥrῑr al-Marʾa [Liberation of Women]. Cairo: n.p., 1899.

Afsaruddin, Asma. “Dying in the Path of God: Reading Martyrdom and Moral Excellence in the Qur’ān.” In Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam, edited by Sebastian Günther and Todd Lawson, 162-80. Leiden: Brill, 2017.

Baraka, Iqbal. “The Influence of Contemporary Arab Thought on the Women’s Movement.” In Women of the Arab World, edited by N. Toubia. London: Zed Books, 1988.

Baron, Beth. “Islam, Philanthropy, and Political Culture in Interwar Egypt: The Activism of Labiba Ahmad.” In Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts, edited by Michael Bonner, Mine Ener, and Amy Singer, 239-54. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003.

—. “An Islamic Activist in Interwar Egypt.” In Women, Philanthropy, and Civil Society, edited by Kathleen D. McCarthy, 225-44. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001.

Booth, Marilyn. ““May Her Likes Be Multiplied”: “Famous Women” Biography and Gendered Prescription in Egypt, 1892-1935,” Signs 22, no. 4 (Summer 1997): 827-90.

Cole, Juan Ricardo. “Feminism, Class, and Islam in Turn-of-the-Century Egypt.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 13, no. 4 (Fall 1981): 387-407.

Dessouki, Ali E. Hillal. “Arab Intellectuals and al-Nakba: The Search for Fundamentalism.” Middle Eastern Studies 9, no. 2 (Spring 1973): 187-95.

Gershoni, Israel. “The Evolution of National Culture in Modern Egypt: Intellectual Formation and Social Diffusion, 1892-1945.” Poetics Today 13, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 325-50.

Haddad, Yvonne. “Islamists and the ‘Problem of Israel’: The 1967 Awakening.” Middle East Journal 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 266-85.

Hamdan, Amani. “Women and Education in Saudi Arabia: Challenges and Achievements.” International Education Journal 6, no. 1 (2005): 42-64.

Hatem, Mervat F. “‘A’isha Abdel Rahman: An Unlikely Heroine: A Post-Colonial Reading of her Life and Some of her Biographies of Women in the Prophetic Household.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 7, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 1-26.

Kamali, Mohammad Hashim. Tajdīd, Islah and Civilisational Renewal in Islam. Washington DC: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2018.

Khaldi, Boutheina. Egypt Awakening in the Early Twentieth Century: Mayy Ziyādah’s Intellectual Circles. Palgrave, Macmillan, 2012.

Khalidi, Rashid. “Arab Nationalism: Historical Problems in the Literature.” The American Historical Review 96, no. 5 (Winter 1991): 1363-1373.

Kooij, C. “Bint Al-Shati’: A Suitable Case for Biography?” In The Challenge of the Middle East: Middle East Studies at the University of Amsterdam, edited by Ibrahim Sheikh, C. Aart van de Koppel, and Rudolf Peters, 67–72. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, 1982.

Kucinskas, Jaime. “A Research Note on Islam and Gender Egalitarianism: An Examination of Egyptian and Saudi Arabian Youth Attitudes.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49, no. 4 (2010): 761-70.

McLarney, Ellen Anne. “The Liberation of Islamic Letters: Bint al-Shati’’s Literary License.” In Soft Force: Women in Egypt's Islamic Awakening, 35-69. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.

—. “The Islamic Public Sphere and the Discipline of Adab.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 43 (Summer 2011): 429–49.

Mohammad, Noor. “The Doctrine of Jihād: An Introduction.” Journal of Law and Religion 3, no. 2 (1985): 381-97.

al- Rawaf, Haya Saad and Simmons, Cyril. “The Education of Women in Saudi Arabia.” Comparative Education 27, no. 3 (1991): 287-95.

Roded, Ruth. “Bint Al-Shati’s “Wives of the Prophet”: Feminist or Feminine?” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 33, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 51-66.

Siddiqi, Mazheruddin. “Islam: A Revolution.” Islamic Studies 17, no. 3 (Autumn 1978): 203-15.

Stoenescu, Dan. “Palestinian Nationalism: From Secularism to Islam.” Studia Politica: Romanian Political Science Review 7, no. 2 (2007): 312-30.

Tamez, Elsa. “The Woman Who Complicated the History of Salvation.” CrossCurrents 36, no. 2 (Summer 1986): 129-39.

Van Leeuwen, Richard. “In the ‘Land of Wonders’: Bint al-Shāṭiʾ’s pilgrimage: The hajj and the construction of reformist religiosity.” In Muslim Women’s Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond, edited by Marjo Buitelaar, Manja Stephan-Emmrich, and Viola Thimm, 166-79. London: Routledge, 2020.