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Reviewed by:
  • Women, Islam, and Abbasid Identity by Nadia Maria El Cheikh
  • Aisha Geissinger (bio)
Women, Islam, and Abbasid Identity Nadia Maria El Cheikh Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015 160 pages. isbn 9780674736368

In this thought-provoking book Nadia Maria El Cheikh examines the roles of representations of women and sexuality in textual rhetoric of legitimation and self-definition during the first few centuries of the Abbasid dynasty (750–1258 CE). Having come to power by overthrowing the Umayyads (661–750 CE), the Abbasids initially sought to legitimate themselves by associating the former dynasty with the resurgence of attitudes and practices said to have been characteristic of pre-Islamic Arabian paganism, or jahiliyya. In a number of texts from the first few centuries of Abbasid rule, the jahiliyya was initially constructed as a time of impurity and corruption, and later as one of ignorance and barbarism. Such representations were less concerned about Arabian paganism per se than with defining what it meant to be Arab and Muslim, as well as a Sunni imperial power. El Cheikh points out that this rhetoric is gendered, as negative attributes such as excess, passion, and disorder, which are said to have characterized the jahiliyya, are also associated in these texts with women in general, as well as with particular female figures. Rhetoric of this type came to be applied not only to pagans before Islam, but to any group regarded as threatening, such as movements deemed heretical by Sunnis or military rivals such as the Byzantine Empire.

The introduction, which gives a clear overview of the scope of the book, begins with the well-known story of the so-called harlots of Hadramaut. These women are said to have openly celebrated when they heard that the prophet Muhammad was dead, and the first caliph Abu Bakr reportedly ordered that they be cruelly punished. This tale expresses fears about the possible resurgence of paganism, uses female figures to represent the jahiliyya as diametrically opposed to Islam, and provides an object lesson in which order is restored through the violent suppression of these women. It is an apt illustration of El Cheikh’s contention that “women, gender relations, and sexuality are at the heart of the cultural [End Page 132] construction of identity, as they are discursively used to fix moral boundaries and consolidate particularities and differences” (15).

Chapter 1 focuses on early Abbasid textual representations of Hind bt. Utba, the mother of the founder of the Umayyad dynasty, Muʾawiya. Following the Battle of Uhud, she reportedly mutilated the dead body of Muhammad’s uncle, Hamza, even chewing his liver. El Cheikh discusses the ways that stories of this type about Hind present her as an embodiment of jahiliyya by variously portraying her as animal-like, emotionally uncontrolled, and hypersexual. She observes that such negative depictions are linked to early Abbasid vilification of Muʾawiya; when his image began to be presented in less condemnatory ways in the ninth century, attempts were also made to rehabilitate Hind, portraying her as more stereotypically feminine, chaste, and Muslim. Her image has thus been shaped by a number of political, sectarian, and theological considerations.

In chapter 2, which addresses textual representations of women’s lamentation and death rituals, the use of female figures to delimit boundaries between Islam and jahiliyya is further explored. Pre-Islamic Arabian mourning practices are condemned in a number of hadiths (which often associate them with women), ostensibly because these rituals imply opposition to the divine will, as well as a lack of faith in the afterlife. However, as El Cheikh notes, Sunni opposition to Shiʾi rituals lamenting the death of Husayn was also an underlying factor in such condemnation. The association of women in particular with mourning constructed these practices as unmasculine, while at the same time linking femaleness with impiety and irrationality. By contrast, hadiths that depict female companions calmly accepting the deaths of loved ones affirm the distinctiveness of Muhammad’s community from the pagans and instruct Muslims how they should behave in such circumstances.

Chapter 3 examines Sunni writings about an Ismaili sect, the Qaramita, which claim that the women in the group did not veil and mingled...

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