History Of Islam In Africa

Chapter 18: Muslim Women in African History

CHAPTER 18 Muslim Womrn itt Africatt HistoM1 Ro6e-rtaAnn Dun6a.,.. A discussion ofwomen and Islam must be seen in the context ofclass, country, andabove all the Quran. It is more accurate to say what aparticular country does notpermit women to do than to say what Islam permits orforbids. -Ira G. Zepp' It has not been the case that woman-sympathetic discourses have been entirely lacking in the history ofIslam after all but that they have not been able to attain authority. -Ayesha M. Imam2 As members of society, women reside in social and political contexts that propose images and expected roles. Historical factors of culture, colonial rule, and post-independent political and economic patterns constitute pervasive shaping themes ofcontext. Government, the law, and ideology-arenas dominated by men-set its tone. But women interpret, negotiate, mediate, and act, as men do. Until recently, quite different traditions of scholarship have informed our understanding of these matters: historical literature has more often characterized Islam by describing the context, whereas the social sciences have focused more on practice. Men and women do not necessarily experience religion the same way.3 Does this mean-as it has so often been portrayed-that women's experience is any less Islamic? The following narrative emphasizes women's roles, experiences, and the way they have fashioned their identities as Muslims in different arenas of life. It looks upon women as actors, and explores examples ofMrican Muslim women as adepts in spirit possession; as teachers and spiritual leaders; and as political actors and agents of change. The preceding chapters have described the history of Islam's spread throughout the subcontinent and the primary features ofMuslim law in Africa-the various contexts in which women live. The themes ofpolitical economy, regionalism, Ro6erta Ann Dun6ay and family law found in those chapters provide important background to the discussion below. A"cpts 111 Spirit Posscssiol1 Questions about why women practice spmt possession have fueled much scholarly debate.4 Are women who engage in spirit possession exhibiting some kind of psychological catharsis made necessary by the stress of their relatively low status in hierarchical societies? Or do spirit possession and the social obligations practitioners impose represent strategies that women develop to create an arena to express their individual persona and negotiate more favorable rewards from their domestic situation? Do women find spirit possession useful as a buffer to patriarchal hegemony in the broader society? Women's views have been much less visible in the literature on African Muslim societies until scholars began the deconstruction of Muslim societies' social categories.5 The attention ofthese scholars to women's conceptions of men, their world, and its relationship to women illumines the negotiated nature ofgender and the moral order. These studies have enlarged our focus by going beyond the personal experience of possession and the motivations for it to considering how these cults offer possibilities-at least at the symbolic level-for the realignment of public values. Nowhere is this more clear than in discussions about spirit possession-most notably bori in West Africa and zar in northeastern Africa. From the earliest instances ofIslamic transformation of community in Hausaland , spatial separation of the sexes has defined a gendered world.6 Today, several degrees of seclusion obtain depending on the form of marriage, and in the rural areas, wealth. For the most part, married Muslim women in Hausa-speaking areas live within female quarters of their husband's home, going out only with his permission and only for medical, ceremonial, and, in some instances, social visits to friends. The segregated world has its own dynamic, ranging from the busy and complex management of a royal household in Kan07 to the autonomous economic world women generate with the help of children and servants from within their quarters.s Multiple marriages, and alternatives to second and succeeding marriages available in karuwanci,9 offer opportunities for choice, including the practice of spirit possession, or bori. To married women, bori is an occasion for celebration, music, and dance, albeit within the confines oftheir own homes. The social support ofother women and material gifts given by her husband to one possessed, overcome isolation and permit a woman to negotiate attention. But ifbori is liberating of the spirit, it does not create equality of the sexes; in contexts where both male and female adepts practice, they operate in spheres divided by sex, with the male sphere being the more innovative and in control of the more important spirits.1o Perhaps this, too...