"The Muslim and Time" and "The Prophet and Hadith"

by Fatema Mernissi The Veil and the Male Elite

Reading notes by Shama Farooq

In these two chapters, Fatema Mernissi describes what she believes to be the major malady of the Muslim world and why she thinks it is so.

In "The Muslim and Time," Mernissi begins by identifying the major "problem" within the Muslim world. She says that Muslims, instead of living in the present, are clinging to memories of a distant past. She believes that while Muslim politicians

"rely on grandiose dreams and myths of past glories" to move Muslims, Muslim scholars like Muhammad al'Jabiri and 'Abd al-Kabir Khatibi criticize turning to memories of glory (15). Mernissi is suspicious of modern Muslim politicians' trend of associating with the "cult of the ancients" that leads to the "institutionalization of authoritarianism" (17). She goes on to question why Muslims must turn to the past when all that matters is the future.

Fatema Mernissi says that respect and understanding of the importance of time and speed are basic values in those Western civilizations that have progressed and are now dominating the globe (17). She believes that "chronopolitics" have replaced geopolitics; "power is achieved through control of the intangible: the flow of signs, the circulation of information, and liquid sums" (18). Imperialism, she claims, is not concerned with material property or even economics. Rather it is a new way of thinking, "of evaluation" (18). Mernissi believes that while Westerners are fascinated with the future, modern Muslims live a living death (20). She, like al-Jabiri, believes that Muslims cannot understand the old texts if they don't view them with a modern eye. Here, she takes the time to define what being a Muslim means to her: one who belongs to a theocratic state (20). She believes that being a Muslim is "a civil matter, a national identity" (21). Going on to show how the concept of time, power and femininity interact within the Muslim world, Mernissi says with independence from colonizers ,Muslim states found themselves in a time where they had to change their definition of citizen (21). Their basic values concerning women, individuality and politics were in opposition to the values of the dominant culture (here she uses examples from the UN Charter on human rights) (22). She gives an excellent example of the Moroccan Code of Personal Status which, in almost complete opposition to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, required the wife in a marriage to live "under the direction of the husband" (23). Concluding, she says that the "the order" that Muslims wish for must be investigated in a historical perspective.

The second chapter, "The Prophet and the Hadith," takes the reader into an historical account of the Prophet Muhammad's life, his death, the political conflict that ensued after his death and how Islamic laws began to be manipulated by Muslim political entrepreneurs. After giving a short biography, Mernissi describes the power struggle that ensued directly after the Prophet's death-so soon after, she says, that the body of the Prophet lay unburied for three days. The leader of the Muslims after the Prophet's death was not of his lineage (as was the custom) but was a close friend and companion, and this set a criteria for choosing a leader among the Muslims. Even the first four "orthodox" caliphates, Mernissi reports, were riddled with political infighting among the Muslims (between mostly the friends of the Prophet and his relatives mostly, and also between the Sunnis and the Shiites).

Mernissi goes on to describe how Islamic law was defined. First, there was the Koran, the sacred text, thought to be the word of God. It was related in Arabic, the native tongue of the Prophet. The Prophet received it orally and related it orally (he did not know how to read or write) (29). She explains that the order of the revelations were related to the "needs of the moment" and thus are not in the same order today as they were revealed (29). The second piece of Islamic law, the fiqh, came to be the result of elaboration by Muslim experts on the Koran, the sayings of the Prophet (the Hadith) and the traditions of the Prophet (the Sunnah) (32). The entire concept of Islamic law-from topics like how to act towards an "unjust caliph" to how to perform ablutions-is based on the interpretation of the Koran as well as the Hadith (34).

Mernissi now reports how the Hadith began to be used as a political weapon among Muslim leaders (34). She explains how methodically the recorders of the Hadith, al-Bukhari in particular, worked to determine the authenticity of the Hadith (44). Attention was paid, especially, to establish the validity of the isnad (chain of people who recited the supposed Hadith). It is here that Mernissi reports some Muslim intellectuals began to misuse their work. In other words, there were those who would sell their work to politicians who pressured them to "fabricate" religious knowledge so that it benefited them (45). She explains that there were those who lied for material advantage and those who lied for ideological advantage (45). There were several power struggles within the Muslim world and religious leaders who interpreted the Hadith often became political leaders or leaders of public opinion (46). Muslim politicians began to use storytellers and poets to spread their ideology under the guise of the Hadith (47). The importance of women and indeed their credibility was sometimes, according to Mernissi, demoted where it did not suit the ruler (47). She mentions that the Hadith that says nations cannot prosper if their leader is a woman was related by Ali, the fourth caliph, after a battle with Aisha-a wife of the Prophet. Along with the Hadith, Mernissi states that Muslims also forged genealogies which were a source of great pride among the Arabs (48).

Mernissi questions the validity of the traditions she says modern Muslims are so devoted to upholding. She says politics, personal as well as group interests undermined the correct transmission of many of the Hadith. It was thus very easy to erase or denote the rights of women who were already the dominated sex. According to Fatema Mernissi, Muslims are losing the race when they hold on to such ideologies that are outdated, untrue, and politically motivated.

Opinions:

Mernissi takes out the time to identify one of the causes of the continous downfall of Muslims all over the world‹basically their fascination with their seemingly glorious past and the refusal to identify with the present. In doing so, she reminds me of theEastern poet/philosopher Sir Allama Iqbal. Like Mernissi, Iqbal (writing in the early 1900s) pointed out the fallacy of living in the past.

Her use of the UN Declarations on Human Rights as a standard for comparing Moroccan codes od behaviour worries me since theses UN resolutions on human rights are often not respected or even considered applicable in many parts of the world and not just Morocco or other Muslim countries.

My only concern with Mernissi is that she seems to have some discrepancies in her data. (Perhaps this feeling would be alleviated if the endnotes pretaining to this section were available.) For example, she says that the Prophet's body was left unburied for three days due to political infighting among the various Muslim groups. Firstly, most texts say (and this is where a list of her sources would be helpful) that the Prophet was buried one day after his death. Secondly, the reason behind the late burial was that the Muslims present could not fathom the Prophet's death‹that is until Abu Bakr recited a Koranic verses that reminded them Prophets were human and so subject to immortality. Also, the people present did not know how to carry out the funeral (actually there was to be no funeral) or where to bury the body. This was, according to Muslim historians, revealed to them in a dream. (By the way, I can provide certain text as proof here) Thirdly, Mernissi stresses that after the Prophet, Muslim leaders (including Abu Bakr) were among the elites of the society. Abu Bake, one might point out, was much like a right-hand man for the Prophet. He confirmed the Prophet's ascent into the Heavens‹the Miraj‹ and earned the title Saddiq (one who tells the truth). He was very much "qualified" to be the leader regardless of his elitist position. While I agree that certain changes or discrepancies in the Prophet's hadith may have occured due to political infighting among Muslims, the political conflict that resulted directly after the Prophet's death was not as critical as Mernissi paints it.