Becoming Feminine
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Her eye rested on the One Sole Beauty,
Her soul submerged in the flood of love,
Her heart rose high in spiritual flights,
while into her ear profound mysteries penetrated.
Don’t call her a “woman”--for even one strand of her hair
is still better than a hundred men.
Jami
 
 
Where exactly do we turn for a fair representation of Muslim women, one which we can safely say determines the culture of Islam? Do we turn to the ideal or the real? To put it more specifically: does a more telling depiction lie in cultural imaging and literary representations or in the sphere of historical actuality? These are the central questions that Annemarie Schimmel’s recent book, My Soul is a Woman: The Feminine in Islam (1995; translated from the German by Susan H. Ray, Cairo: AUC Press, 1998), raises through addressing both dimensions of the subject of women in Islamic culture and in mystical literature.
 
The arrangement of the book’s chapters is in itself indicative of the author’s approach. Whereas the first two chapters present the historical evidence of the public role played by women mystics and religious scholars in various Islamic societies, as well as women in the life of the Prophet (PBUH), a third chapter is on women’s positive and respectful depiction in the Qur’an. Then, the remaining chapters -representing the bulk of the book- analyze the various literary motifs and symbols of the “feminine” constructed especially by Sufism, and predominant in its literature and philosophy. This way, Schimmel is inviting us to a consideration of the full picture. She begins with the factual that is a reflection of the doctrinal and theoretical, constantly reminding us to distinguish between misogynist tendencies in some popular folk narratives, on the one hand, and true Islamic injunctions and the model of the Prophet, on the other. The latter, coupled with numerous great Muslim women we know of throughout history, will reveal to us a more informed image of woman in Islamic tradition. Actually, it is this imbalance between the humane principles of Islam and the ideas formulated later in societies that constitutes, in my opinion, today’s dilemma for Muslim women. One cannot help but wonder: why the deterioration, and why the gradual disappearance of Muslim women from history?
 
An interesting example that Schimmel cites for this development of ideas that clearly “have no Qur’anic foundation” (p.76) is the case of the long epic, The Tales of the Prophets, spread by folk preachers and imaginative bards in several versions. Whereas nowhere does the Qur’an make Eve responsible for the “fall from grace” or for introducing the original sin (which Islam does not even recognize), the poet Kisa’I intensifies Eve’s negative characterization, her guilt, and subsequent punishment. Such folk or literary works, therefore, play their role over the course of time to nurture popular misogynist ideas or assumptions that “rest not upon the words of the Qur’an but upon rather imaginative interpretations of the same by the believers” (57). The author here hits on a serious matter, although she risks simplifying it or brushing it aside when she offers a mild description of these negative representations as “imaginative” treatments on the part of “believers”. I winced: would someone who defames and distorts the equitable values of religion still be called a ‘believer’? Schimmel, herself, in another part of the book (180) acknowledges that the rigidity and injustice, which have grown over the course of time, take on “an almost canonical character”. It was not within the scope of this study, however, to trace the complicated route of this development.
 
Another example is Schimmel’s explanation of the “linguistic” origin of some of these misogynist notions that filtered into Sufism. For those who lived in ascetic fear of the feminine, it must have been logical and natural that the grammatical gender of the word nafs in Arabic (meaning the human self that comprises base instincts and incites to evil) is feminine. Woman, therefore, was at times made a symbol of the lower sensual tendencies, which thwart ascetic inclinations, as well as an embodiment of the world, (dunya being also grammatically feminine) and its seductions. In this, Sufism is not very far, as the author keeps reminding us, from medieval European Christian writers and Buddhist teachings, which are also abundant with such metaphors and with the customary scorn for wives in particular. According to
Schimmel we need not take these religions or cultures to task. For “such negative images of the feminine are a familiar aspect of all religious movements marked by an ascetic strain” (73), and “the fact that the male principle repeatedly dominated the practical aspects of living is a given in all religions and cultures of our world” (180). It follows, then, from the notions of nafs and dunya, that some Sufis would spread their ideal of ‘man’ as one who truly walks along God’s path, as the 13th century northern Indian saying goes: “Talib al-Maula mudhakkar.../ Whoever seeks the Lord is a male...” (76).
 
Yet, parallel to those notions, we also find quite positive representations. It is the basic contention of the author that only after examining this mixture in its entirety can one claim a full comprehension, and hence judgement, of the place of woman and the feminine in Islamic cultural traditions. Even though the dangerous nafs and dunya have been represented as woman, a related and more prevalent theme is that of the ‘womansoul’. In other words, it is a dual metaphor which expresses the potential that women who are nafs figures (the lower material soul) can attain in the end a higher stage of perfection and reach the goal of becoming a “soul at peace” (71). This identification of the loving and suffering soul with the feminine takes place especially in Persian, Turkish, and Indian poetry dealing with the figures of Bilqis (Queen of Sheba) and Zulaikha (Potiphar’ wife in the story of Joseph). The two women appear in mystical tales and epics to personify the human soul in its longing and yearning for the Divine Beloved, and in its suffering and pain, until she can be finally reunited with her Lord, object of her affection and cause of her purification.
 
This woman-soul mystical image intersecting with stories of Love and Beauty leads the author to trace another kind of representation that is more intellectually inclined, rather than the previous romanticized configurations. It was the great Andalusian mystic Ibn Arabi (13th century) who extended the view of the woman-soul to encompass the dhat, the Divine Essence itself. As he saw it, the feminine aspect is the form in which God can best be recognized, and Woman becomes the personification of the Divine (102, 107), and the idealized object of human mystical love. As for someone like the Persian Sufi poet Rumi (13th century), his attention remains focused on the feminine aspect of the soul: in its yearning for union with God, it becomes the bride-soul who is reunited in conjugal bliss with her Primordial Beloved.
 
It is such conceptualizations of woman and the feminine reiterated throughout
Islamic/mystical literature, that leads Schimmel to her most significant conclusion: whether conscious of it or not, the lovesick mystic in Sufism is definitely a “feminine” figure (115). Interestingly, this assertion might serve in an indirect way as an answer to Kari Vogt’s essay on “becoming male” as metaphor in Islamic tradition (in Women’s Studies of the Christian and Islamic Traditions, ed. Kari Borresen & Kari Vogt, 1993), in which the author capitalizes on the notion of identifying pious asceticism with masculinity and spiritual progress with turning into “man”. It is a notion she claims is found in Gnosticism, Christianity, and in the case of Islam, she bases her conclusions on only one Persian hagiographical text and two exegetical commentaries. However, Schimmel’s more indepth study demonstrates that one cannot consider few scattered negative statements as representing a whole religious culture in all its complexity and diversity. Her extensive knowledge of the literary traditions and cultural heritage and practices in different parts of the Islamic world allows her to deal with various strands of themes and images within what she calls “the complex of women and Sufism” (107). Hence, the book is small but extremely concentrated and studded with Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Indo-Muslim texts, in order to emphasize the importance of such wide readings and comparative analysis.
           
What about the questions posed at the beginning? Even though the author is aware that women in Muslim societies have and still are suffering as a result of customs and attitudes that lack Qur’anic foundation (180), she still maintains a positive outlook throughout. According to her, an analysis of the image of women in Islamic/Sufi literature, in the light of the “ideal” -rather than the deteriorating “real”- makes us appreciate better the true character of Muslim culture. Hence, Schimmel avoids engaging seriously the pitfalls of Western-orientalist representation, on one hand, and misogynist strains in tradition, on the other. She records, though, a clear rejection of both as a true reflection of women in Islam: “Neither lascivious harem eroticism nor popular anecdotes about the cunning of womankind have determined the culture of Islam” (181).
 
Full of beautiful poetry, My Soul is a Woman is an inspiring and enjoyable book,particularly for those looking for the not-so-wellknown positive cultural symbols and literary motifs, which can serve as a source ofempowering knowledge of the past only to enableone to deal with present day inquiries.
 

Omaima Abou-Bakr

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