Discourse on Women's Education in Egypt During the Nieteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: A Convergence

of Protefemtnist, Nationaiist, and Islamic Reformist Thought.

by Laura Piquado

hstitute of lslamic Studies McGiii University, Montreal

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partiai fulf ihnt of the requirements of the degree of

Master of Arts

O Laura Piquado 1999

"i uisiüons a d Acquisitions et Bib iographii Senrices senrices bibiiiraphiques

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Abstract of Thesis

Discourse on Women's Education in Egypt During the Nineteenth and Early Twenîieth Centuries: A Convergence

of Proto-Feminist, NationaUst, and Islamic Reformist Thought

by Laura Piquado

This thesis explores the development of women's education in

pre-inde pendence Egyp t from the mid-nineteenth century to 19 22.

It Iooks at women's educational facilities and women's access to

education through the reigns of Muhammad Ali, Said, Ismail and the

British occupation. While the rise in women's educational concerns

on a forma1 levei paraiiels the growth of moâernist, Islamic

reformist, and proto-feminist thought in the iate nineteenth centwy,

the relationship among the three groups vis a vis their respective

positions on women's education difiers and is therefore examfned in

the thesis.

Research on this topic rweals a correlation between the early

women's movement, a strong proponent of women's education, and

Egypfs national and Isiamic reform movements. As each group

espouseci a vision of change for Egypt, one secuiar and the other

decidedly more religious, the cornmon denominator for social

pcogress was the unanimous support for advancements, although

condiîional, in educational polides regarding women. Couched in a

context of modernism, the pursuit of freedom from foreign conml

and the desire for Egypt to develop into a fully productive Society,

were indispensable aspects of the deveIopment of women's

education.

i

Cette Wse explore le développement de l'éducation des

femmes en Égypte pour la période précédant Pindépendance, sait à

partir du milieu du 19e siMe jusqu' en 1922. Elle examine plus

particulièrement la disponibiiité et L'accessibilité des services

d'éducation destinés aux femmes sous les règnes de Muhammad Ali

et isrnail ainsi que sous l'oc-cupation britannique. La croissance de

I1int&êt en faveur de l'éducation des femmes s'effectue

conjointement à la montée des courants de pensée "Moderniste",

"Réformiste Islamique" et "Proto-féministen de la fin du 1 Se siècle. La

relation entre ces trois groupes concernant leur position respective

sur la question de l'éducation des femmes est aussi examinée.

La recherche à ce sujet démontre une corrélation entre les

débuts du mouvement des femmes (fortement en faveur de

l'éducation de celles-ci), le mouvement national Égyptien et le

mouvement de réforme Islamique. Chacun de ces groupes possède

une vision Mérente du changement pour 1'Egypte, plus séculière ou

plus religieuse selon le cas. Le dénominateur commun pour le

progrès sociai est un support unanime, bien que conditionnel, pour

I'avaucement des politiques d'éducation et d'accessibilité pour les

femmes. Dans un contexte de m ~ ~ t i o n , ia recherche de

libération du connôle étranger et le déslr de l'Égypte de se

développer en temps que sodété pleinement productive constituent

des aspects indispensables au d&eloppement de l'éducation des

f m e s .

Acknowledgments

1 would like to express my profound gratitude to a number of people

without whose generous assistance I wouid sti1.i be chnoring to peck and

scratch my way through the first chapter. My supervisor, Dr. A. Uner

Turgay, has provided me with boundiess encouragement and support

thmugh the entirety of this journey, and it is his dedication to my thesis

and to myself as his student that 1 give my warmest thanks. 1 must also

thank Am Yaxley and Dawn Richardson of the Instinite of Islamic Studies

offlce, the resident mothers, for theh pokes and nudges, reminders of

deadiines, and their waterfd of hugs. Sahva Ferahian, Wayne St. Thomas,

1 - and the staff members of the Islamic Studies library have been

tremendous in remembering me when relevant books came through,

ordering obscure pubîications from universides fat and wide, and keeping

me in the clear through the iibrary jungle. I m u t thank the Institute itself

for financiai support through the tenure of my degree. The thesis in this,

its final form, would never have been -out Amelia Gallagher's

computer. Through ai l my whims, the editing frenzy, and the panic of the

process, she has aiways and only given me open access to her laptop, and

a swift kick where needed to get Tt submitted on time. To these and

countless others, beyt ai-Thomson, Lise, Der&, my mother and father, I

can only offer a gracious thanks. This thesis is dedicated to my

grandfather, Cari Piquado.

Table of Contents

Abstract Resume Acknowledgmen ts Table of Contents

1.

II. OVERVIEW OF EGYPTIAN EDUCATION 1836-1 882 Educational Reforms

Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali's Succcessors British Occupation

Pro to-Feminist Dimension Women's j o d s

3 II 1. EGYPT AND MODE3MW Western Intervention and the Crisis of Modernity

A Dmtion The Egyptian Context Modernity and Sodal Progress

Modernization and Education Modernity and Religion: Islam, Women & Education

IV. THE PROTAGONISrS Muslirn Reformists Islamic Nationaüsts Women Activists

V. CONCLUSION

Appendix Table 1 Table 2

Bibliograp hy

INTRODUCTION

The turn of the twentieth century witnessed a tidal-wave of

nationalist movements giving voice to the long-stifled aspirations of

the colonies of European powm. The dual task that lay ahead in the

construction of emerging ideologies focused on national

independence and the creation of modern, viable eet ies. in the

world of Islam, Egypt, foilowing the lead of Turkey under Mustafa

Kemal AtatWk, pursued a like process. For such traditionalist

societies of the Muslim world, however, the factor of modernism in

th& natlonaiist agendas was itself a foreign construct as its very

existence was defineci by Western criteria and Western values.

hdeed change, as per the sociai, poiitid, and economic affairs of the

state came with such rapid speed that perhaps an understanding of

'how to m w the phenornenon of modernhm for M u s h society?'

was brushed aside or given but cumry thought and attention paid

Uistead to the outcome of success.

The incorporation of women in modernist/nationaiist

movements as prescribed by Western fdeology was an inextricable

component of the very caustic dynamics of progress. The volce of

women (perhaps synchronous to the cries of colonial oppression and

their enmg, Inevitable emancipation) on the social and politicai

stage was in and of itself tantamount to an &Kt of revoiutionary

proportions. Yet for lack of support or mhesion as a dweloped

movement it couid not stand on its own. As such, rather for rasons

of survival than ideology, the early women's movement forged an 13 alliance with Egyptts nationaiist movement, involving itself in

demonstrations against British occupation- not on behalf of the dghB

of women, but advocating the nationalist agenda alongside their male

counterparts. The actMty of these women was intended to convey a

dedication to the nationaiist cause as the primary concern of the day;

its tank far superseding the level of public support for the stil l

nascent women's movement Ideologically, therefore, Egyptian

feminism was linked with Egyptian nationalism, and thus supporteci

the counûy's pursuit of h.eedom from foreign control as well as the

desire to see Egypt develop into a fully productive, progressive

socfew through their own interpretation of modemism. The

nationaiist dimension of the feminist cause granteci it an air of

1:-1 Iegitimacy it may have othemise lacked given that the public

addressiig of women's concems was not prevalent in customary

debate. It is also the case that Egypt was not alone in its efforts at

coming to terms with women's concerns. Countries both in and

outside of the Musiim fold were faced with similar proto-women's

movernents which found themseives a popular ideologicai framework

within which to operate. The constitutional movement of 1905-1 9 1 1

in km, for instance, was a forum where women demanded legal

expression of their rights as mothers, and their rights of uiheritance.

tn the United States at this the , not only was the abolishment of

slavery (1865) struggiing to take shape in the American psyche, but

this self-same atmosphere of change and progressive human

expression found its way into the Arnerican womeds movement as

As feminisrn only emerged in its nascent form duriag the final ' _

decades of the nineteenth century, a clear deAnidon of proto-

feminist thought had yet to be ernployed.1 It was understood in

terms of the discourse fdmtified with early femtni';t expressions of

womeds segregated voices; essays, letters, and poetry that had

previously k e n Invisible. Unes such as,

1 challenge my desthy, my tirne 1 challenge the human eye

I will sneer at ikliculous rules and people Thar is the end of it; f wiil wfll my eyes with pure light, aod swlm in a sea of unbound feeltng

1 have challenged tradition and my absurd positim, and 1 have gone beyond whar age and place allow.2

I from early feminlst Aisha ai-Talmuriyyar s poetry found their place

withln a growing body of feminist iiterature and expressecl an

awareness that had yet to be nameci. hdeed, the very issue of

visibility, versus invisibiiity, has been discussed by Margot Badran in terms of public femMst consciousness. She notes that it is Qpim

Amui and hls publication of al - ' (Liberadon of the

Woman) in 1899 that has traditionally ken credited with p i o n m g

the feminist discourse in Egypt While it is accepted that his maie

IThe term 'feminismF was 6 r s t used in its offiaal capaaty in 1923 with the establishmat of the Egyptian Feminist Union. With French as the dominant language of the union's members, given its upper-class mations, there was a dear undersrinding of the mrds feministe and ferninisrne The Arabic translation, however? was and remains ambiguou, The word nisai (women) is the Arabic equivalent which must always be c la -ed in its 'feminist' context to be properiy understooâ. See Margot Badran and Minam Cooke, eds. in

xrv. %id, xxx

proto-feminlm stance was a pioneering act, it was done so in full

pubk view. The invisible, the sedusion of women and their

expression, howevr, appeared three and four decades =lier

beween women within the confines of the upper-class harems.,

While accepting the world-wide diversity of the feminist

experience withh its respective hlstorical context, the term feminlsm

in this paper WU denote an individual and colletive awareness of

the tradidonally o p p d position of women. I t will further

encompass an anaiysis of this oppression through male and f e d e

activism- understood as simple diaiogue or as widespread protest.

Although the issue of feminism is not the focus of this paper,

understanding its development as a response to women's social,

economic, psychological and dgious awareness is at the c m of the

rdaionship among the protagonists named: the proto-feminists

nationalists, and the Islamlc reformlsis.

I t wïli be understocxi that women's feminism emerged from its

hold in pre-colonial Egypt preceding the rise of capitalism and

nationalist/modemist thought As such, women ffrst sought support

for th& feminist convictions in Islam iM, (the traditional jury of

M u s h actMty), with the elesnent of rnodeniism oniy king

introduced decades later. Sodal change In the cas of Islamic reform

wUi be discussed as the branch of maiernism iatroduced by Sheikh

Muhammad 'Abduh in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Tbe

western concept of rnodembrn will be more M y exploreci whiie

viewing the Egyptian context as a product of the western

phenornenon and as its own adaptation. 'Abduh's understanding of

3lbid, xv-xxvii.

the modernist philosophy in Islamic t e m recondled the religion

with progressive thought through a rdnterpretation of the Qur'an.

The use of gtihad (independent inquiry), as 'Abduh advocated,

aiiowed women to discover that pTaCtices of seclusion (particularly of

veiüng and segregation), were not, in fact, ordained by Islam as had

been previously accepted. Instead, women found that Islam

guaranteed aii Muslims, both men and women, basic rights.

Aithough the debate that surrounded women's and femlnist cries for

change had supporters and critics from every poiitical and social

platform, al groups struck a chord of agreement in their espousal of

the education of women, viewing it as an indispensable aspect of

social development. For reforma and nationalfsts alike, hom the

progressivism of Muhammad 'AU and Qasim Amin to the

conservatism of Mustafa Kamil and Talat Harb, the success and

ultimate suNival of the future of Egypt as a modern, Islamic society

lay in making iiterate the majority of the population The issue of

women in the social domain was by definition a very modern one.

The education of these women, rherefore, was a compounded

challenge of breaking with cultural propriety and traditionaiist

tendencies.

in my thesis 1 WU d i m the three (perhaps) competing, yet

interwoven agendas on women's education advanced by the then

protewomen's movernent, the Egyptian nadonaiists, and Islamic

reformers h m the late nineteenth century through 1923. 1 wi i i

investïgate the preceding period of the educationai system under

Muhammad Ali with spedfic reference to women's education, and

then document the dweiopments of successive regimes and the

1:. British occupation. 1 wiil examine the concept of Egyptian

modernism, and discuss the ideology of the more prominent figures

of each of the movements with specific reference to women's

education. In broachlng the issue of modernity and Islamic reform

in the Egyptian context, 1 shall attempt to mate a more lucid frame

of understanding in the role of each (the proto-feminist movement,

the nationaiists, and lslaxnic rnodernists) as underwriters to the

ultimate estabiishment and deveiopment of the Egyptian Feminist

Union with very expikit goals towards the modem education of

women.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, both the women's

movement and the Egyptian nationalist movement began to cultivate

their respective domains in response to a burgeoning demand for

social identfty. "They were diffefent expressions of the same

profound problem of contact and confrontation with modern

dvilizationnP Egypt had k e n exposed to the impact of the West

earlier than any other Arab country and was the h s t to experience

direct domination during its occupation by Britain (18824922). This

overwhelming presence of Europe "and collapse of much of the

traditional order led to a reconsideration of Egypt's own position and

identity in relation to the West".s There exists an integral and

comp1ex history behind the telationship of rnodernism to the

women's movement and the ~ t i o n a h t and reform movernents in

terrns of their respective positions towards women's education. To

better understand their alIiance, it is important to examine not only

the acisting social environment, but the response of successWe

regimes to the western influence of progressive educational systems.

4~hilipp, Thomas, "Feminism and Nationaiist Politics in Egypt", Womn in the Worlp. Nikkie Keddie and Lois Beck. eds.. Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1984, p. 277. s~hilipp, "Feminism and Nationaüst Politics in Egypt", 277.

EDUCATIONAL REFORMS

Muïlammad Ali

in the early nineteenth century the Egyptian state began to

estabiish European-style schools on the mcxiel of secular and

practicai instruction.6 To this extent the influence of the French

presence, aibeit brief (1 798-1801), was the turning point in the

history of modern Egypt.7 Napoleon's invasion brought Egyptians

into immediate contact with Western mîlitary, sdentific, and

educational institutions. When Muhammad Ali8 officially became

wali (viceroy) of Egypt in 1805, his first and exclusive order of duty

was to increase state revenue to gain strength and, ultimately,

independence for Egypt, still under de jure suzerainty of the Ottoman

Empire.9 Part of this drive took the form of a direct, although

sporadic, interest in the deveropment of education. It appears,

6~aron, &th, The Women's A- in EnvDt, New Haven: Yaie University Ekess, 1994, p. 126. Noc only were the schooIs secular in nature, but most were based on French makis. Instnicdon was enüreiy iu Freuch, the teachers were French (initialiy), and the d-sm of Gauiic ïnûuence fkom returning missions served to reinforce French (foreign, western) culture and thought. Traditional schoois were then reassembled under this system, 7 ~ , N. Abdulhameed, "IsIamic Educatfon: A Resource Unit For Secondary Schwis in Egypt". PhJ). Dissermrion, Ohio State University, 1982,8. 8~uhammad-,& was the commander-in-chief of the Albanian forces, the mercenary wing of the ûttomau army. When the Ottomans drove the French out of Egypt in 1801 they, alongside British and Mamiuk forces, fought to put their candidates into power as govenror of Egypt Despite a lengthy conflict with the Porte, Muhammad Aii ciaüned the titie in 1805 and maintaineci the position until1848. "He founded a dynasty that was m nile Egypt until1952, and started a process of modernization and the development of a modern state system." Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Matsot, A- of Modern EPvnt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985,s 1-53. erucker, Judith, & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, 25.

however, that due to his desire to have an educated population, 10

educating Egyptians was a necessary factor in reaklng his ptimary

ccincern: the building of a modern army and navy to support his wars

of conquest in Arabia, Greece, the Sudan and Syria.11 As the

feasibiiity of irnprting enough foreign experts to rndemhe his

armeci forces (which depended on modem technology) was not only

impractical but a near irnpossibiiity, Muhammad AU was forced to

train Egyptians and use them as his source of technologicai man-

powetl*. The Egyptians' traditional background of reiiglous

education, however, was not sufficfent to allow them to comprehend

the techntcai milltary and secular curriculum that Muhammad AU

had aspired ta 13

Untii the reforms of Muhammad AU, the only public institution

for primary education was the 'kutta8, school for Qur'anic

insbnictioai4 For both boys and girls, the mosque was the first

schmi for aU Muslim children where they Iearned to read, memorize

portions of the Qur'an, and tenets of the creed. Girls, however, were

traditionaiiy orlly admitted into the kuttabs until puberty, at which

time they were segregated and taught at home, Institutes of higher

iearning, such as al-Azhar and its affilfateci schools, served as the

lwttle maintains that although Muhammad Ali worked hard to build a strong, modern Egypt, he "wasn't concenieci with the ernancipation of the Egyptian people, w e p t insofar as it could serve his ambition to buiid his own empire", 21. ll~ochran, Judith, w n m &yg&

* . h n d o ~ Groom Helm Ltd, 1986,4. %id., 4- %id, 5-6. 1% idea of an institution (mosque) as a center of reading, wrieing, learning the Qrr'an began with the second diph 'Umar Who appointeci teachers in aiI major aties of the diphate- -Medina, Kufa, Basra. See Ghuiam Nabi Saqib,

t P a & m ~ l & Turw. PhD. Disçermtion (London: University of London, 1989),67-70.

guardians of classical Arabic and orthodox Islam for the educational

elite.15 With Muhammad AU'S reforms, both nav and traditionai

systems of education now fwictioned alongside each other, with the

latter having iittle use in Muhammad Ali's spectrum of economic and

social development.

As this was the working background of his population,

Muhammad Ali sent missions of Egyptians to be trained and

educated abroad, primarily in France and Italy, to leam appropriate,

functional skiiis.16 At home he founded high schools to produce

infantry and other mllitary offlcers to man successfully his growing

army. Hfs troops soon required assistance from medical personnel,

engineers, p harmadsts, veterinarians,l' and so he established

training facilities to accommodate such disciplines. He openeci two

army schools in the citadel (a cadet school in 18 16 and a school for

mathematical sciences in 1821), schools of medicine, arts,

administrative law, music, midwifery, and engineering .l* Other

private and missionary schools- the Armenian private school,

schools of language, Greek schools and Jewish and CathoUc

missionary schools- were also established, but they were primariiy

l%hashar, "lslamic Education: A Resource Unit For Secondary Schools in Egyptw, 10. %aqib notes Muhammad Aii's lack of concem with exaracttng h m Europe Wniaiiy anything it couid offer for the development of Egyptian soàety. As it was purely fimctioilal, he did not view it as culturai meason to adopt such wstern practices, See Ghulam Nabi Saqib, 83-84. 17~ochran, Educanon in i&g&

- - 4. i%mhar, "Islamic Educatioa: A Resource Unit For Secondary Schools in Egyptn, 11-13. It is signi£icant to note that Muhammad Ali's initial attempts at founding schmls such as those in the citadei empioyed "Christian priests as teachers, even for teaching Arabic. (He) nwer made any attempt to emp10y a native teacher". 10.

by-products of Muhammad Au's educational zeal as they did not fiail

under his juridiction.

Muhammad Aii's educationd poilcies were inherently tied to

his economic interests. AU strategies and dwelopment had been

designeci entireiy "to increase state revenue and bolster Egypt's

miïitary might and independencem19 The country's growth had ben

channeleci through its rfsing participation in the world market

beginning in the early 1830s. Even sectors of society tradftionally

dominateci by women, such as the texttle craft and trade industry,

felt the effects of economic expansion.20 These women, howevr,

were nwer trained in the specialized fields Muhammad Ah had

introâuced, and the new mechaniaed labor remained the exclusive

domain of men. "Male advantage in the realm of unsldiied labor

became male monopoly in skllled work"21 When, in the latter part

of the century, Egyptlan indus- could no longer compete with

European products, indigenous production d e c i . Whiie any skilied

iabor at this eime went to men, women were forced into domestic

service as household maids and servants to the urban bourgeoisie. 22

lg~ucker, 71. 2%Vomen Iaborers at this time were highiy organized in guilds. It was a safety net that suppiied work, set wages, and fial taxes for the wmen merchants Baron notes bat iists of guilds h m the nineteenth century- Cotton wrkers, green grocers, milk saers, bakers, midwives- show that some urban tradeswornen and crafm0rne.n had been organized collectively. See Baron, 144-167. 21~bid, 88. 22The growing ranks of fernale inteiktuais of the upper-dass remained generally unaffecteci by Egypt's ecouomic trends, They did not have to work The importance of this distinction WU be addressed later &en outiining upper-ciass status of early ferninisa As th& concerns about female labor were more abstract, work conditions aod wage inequities were nwer issues. Instead, they deait with the preoccupations of th& ciass.

1 - Elnashar properly sums up the riitekctud and educational ' -

situation in Egypt durIng Muhammaci Ali's reign (1805-1848) as a

four decadelong engagement of developing the country to use its

resources for war. It was solely in this context that he estabkhed a

system of miUtary education.

He did not work on any kind of education that wouid enable the Egyptims to set up any private enterprise for themsdves. No provision was made for the peace- ful development of the country, either culturaily, soclally, or economically. The old moque system of education had been almost destroyed in the rush to build an army. When the system broke d o m after his death, all the Egyptians who were employed in the army had nothing to do but try to resume their normal Me as far as possible?

Muhammad Ali's Successon

By the the of his death in 1849, Muhammad AU had made

signiRcant changes in the Hf" of the Egyptian middie-class: in them

he established an educated population.24 Under his immediate

successors, the kh&es 'Abbas and Said, however, the near-

revoludonaxy strides of the educational system waned and a perlod

of stagnation, neglect, and bridled optimism began which continueci

through the end of Said's reign in 1863.25 WhiIe these two rulers did

UElnashr, "Tslamic Education: A Resource Unit For Secondary SdioUls in Egyptn, 16-17. 24~ochran, _Education 4. 2 5 ~ n c k r , & 123. In caafücting and co~riterproductïve policies, for msmce, 'Abbas closecl many of the state schooh M e retaining a Ministry of Public Instruction and under Said's leadership, the ministry was dismandeci and a number of the schools vme re

iittle to promote the development of education in Egypt, Fritz Steppat

points out that it was during the reign of Said that Ibrahim Adham,

the British-trained head of the School Department, successfully . submittd a project for educationai reform. Adham's intention was

to graduily integrate traditional schools wi th those estabiished on a

European curriculum. The result, Steppat maintains, "would give all

chlldren a good general education, useful in al i fields of life."26

Although the project was nwer carried through owing to Said's lack

of cornmitment to educational reform, the favorable public response

to its possibiiity was realized in the marked increase in foreign and

missionary schoois.27

Private educationai fzllities were certainly not new to Egypt

A Greek Orthodox school had ken in Cairo since the middle of the I I seventeehh century, and the Frmdscans had been running a

Cathoiic school, primarily for Christian emigrants h m Syria, since

the middle of the eighteenth century.28 The other mission and

private schools estabüshed under Muhammad AN, as mentioned

earlier, now found community amidst the rising popuiarity of foreign

opened. It was during this period of "stag~tion" of secular, statesponsored education that the further development and subsequent fiourishing of the foreign-language schools hcreased. AIthough many had been successfully functioning since the rule of Muhammad Ali, they ga ina not only enroiimeot due to the closing of secuiar schooh, but also received finandal support h m the Ottoman govemors- espedally hnaiî Pasha, Said's successor- who desired a foreign educational poicy to compüment his 'westemization' of Egypt. See Cochtaa, in EpMt. 5-7. 2%teppat, Fritz, "National Education Projects in Egypt Before British OcCUpation" in of * . . . WrlIiam Polk and Richard Chambers, &., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968,282. z71bïd. Steppat notes that in the Egyptian archives are severai petitions signeci by parents in support of the new schools and a eagemess to have th& children attend them. H e remarks that the petition may be the prwf that Said required to determine if the public was hnily'interested in the project. %id., 282-283.

schmh. "Since the state was unwiliing to meet the growing demand

for girls' edmtion, ... missionaries (and other private instituttons)

found a m d y market for iheir ~chools.~2~ Bamn notes that for a tirne, CMstian missionaries taught a larger nuinber of girls than any

0th institution in the country. #en Said died in 1863 there were

59 foreign and non-IsWc SChmLs in Egypt. By contrast, wen

years later state schmls had oniy ten teachers in three schools

teaching 242 fernale studénts.3Q The government's faitering efforts

on behaIf of women's educational concerns were no match for the

privately-funded, widely respect&, and versatile curricuLums

offered by the foreign and mission schooIs. "Private schools rather

than state ones providecl the bulk of girls' education in Egypt ... especiaiiy at the upper lev& where state secondary schools were

noticeably lackfng."3~ Many early feminists, women's advocates, and

journaiists were able to take advantage of the opportunities of

private schwls (as wiU be dtscussed later) which early on exposed

them to western experiences. The very existence of the schools was,

in fact, an influence towivds progressive id& for woments

education.

The growth of foreign schools in Egypt paralleleci the general

rise of foreign influence in that country. European immigration to

Egypt began at the turn-of-the-century during the French api i t ion

*%mn, 135.. 3-d Despite the popuianty among Egyptians in sending th& children to rnissiomry schoois, mtii the second decade of the twentieth century it was rare to h d a M u s l i . giri in such an institution. When Mtislim parents "were more wilhg, or compelled due to fack of alteniacives, to send their daughters than their sons to (missionary) schools," the percentage of M u a girls in attendance was higher than that of boys. Ibid, 136. 3lTbid., 137.

and continuecl under Muhammad AU. The construction of the Suez

Canal during Said's reign witnessed another rise in foreign

settlernent, which was further accelerated by the favorable economic

circumstances that the American Civil War (1861-65) created for

Egypt.32 The dramatic f a in American cotton shipments to Europe,

c W y to England, created opportunides for w r t i n g Egyptian

cotton to European nations. This was Immediately foiiowed by an

influx of foreigners to the country.

From 1857 to 186 1, an average of 30,000 foreigners came into (Egypt) each yeaq in 1862 they nurnbered 33,000; in 1863,43,000; in 1864,56,500; in 1865, 80,000. These immigmnts quickly won control over commerce, industry and Anance. No doubt they owed their superiority ... partly to th& education. Those who wanted to stand up to them, to foiiow their example, had to strive for a simiîar education.33

Steppat points to this "admirationn of Western education as the

forma1 catalyst for Egyptians to send their children to foreign sch001s.

As this was the public sentiment towards Egyptian educational

aspirations, it was only the luxury of famflies who could a o r d to

send their children to foreign schools. When Ismail came to power in

1863 the state-run school system was, for its part, in appalling

condition and in desperate need of rwival. It consisted of a single

primary and secondary school, one mihtary school and a school of

medicine, and a trade school for navy traîning.34 Ismaii reaiized that

in order to conduct a successful campaign for mademization, as this

was his vision for Egypt, reinstalhg a weîi-dlsdplined school system

should be among the first orders of business. Egyptian schools, he

maintained, should be able to provide Egyptians with the same tools

as off- by foreign and missionary schools, but with a Muslim and

nationaiist emphasis.35 In the early pars of his reign he founded a

number of new schools (primary, meciidne, polytechnic, miiitary)

and reopened many of the professional schools that had been

estabiished under Muhammad Ali. By the end of his rule, Ismail had

opened thirty modem prfmary schmls d e r government control,

nearly ail of them in Cairn. Fritz Steppat mentions that statistics for

this particular class of schools in 1 875 show that they were attended

by 5,362 students, 890 of whom were gi r l s3 Although more

attention was paid to the modern style of teaching and organization

in these schools (such as European bguage instruction and the

attachment of secondary schools to certain national primary school

programs), traditional methods based on Qur'anic instruction

remained prevaient.37 Ismail' s efforts at assimilating modeniization

into Egyptian education were short-Hved, however, as the fiscal crisis

of the 1870's forced the ciosure of niost of these institutions.38

%teppat, 284. Steppat outlines the growing conception in Egyptian society which aügned people with the concept of belonging to a Ilass, a religious cornmunity and a nation. It was a aend that Tsmail htched on to, if only for reasons of sociai progress than an interest in Egypt's nationaiist developments. %teppat, 293. 3%d, 294. 38~ucker, Womem 19th 123. Despite the fact that there were universal crises debilitating the world market, from the aftermath of the American Civil War to the Crimean War, Ismail's extravagant spending left Egypt bankrnpt. Foreign loans coaId be neither found nor bought for any price, and the exces9vely low fiooding of the Wie in 1877 reduced Egypt's crop yields to a state of near desperation.

Aithough the state schooIs were shutting down, 129 new

foreign and private schoofs were opened and flourished as a result of

the chsure of the former. For the year 1878, statistics show a total

of 146 non-IsLamic and foreign schools with 12,539 students; 1,139

of them Musllms.39 CIearly, the influence of foreign schools

increased as Egypt's economy faltered and imposed limitations on

educational possibilides for the mstjority of Egyptians.

British Occupation

British rule was no more successful in facilitating a revival of

state schools. As Tucker notes, dwing the first decade of British

the Egyptian governent almost completely negiected education. In 1892 theentire statemn school system consisteci of 3 3 primary schools, 2 secondary schools, tader-training and miiitary schools, and schools of medicine, law and engineering ... with British officiais denigraüng the role of the State and placing th& hopes in a private (educationai) initia tive... fwhich was) lauded as the solution to educational pro blems.*

This absence of a commitment by the State towards educational

devdopment necessarily affecteci the scope and quaiity of existing

f d e education as weli. The stnicture of government policy had

always maintaineci a gender-spedfic orientation with the nation's

men being the near-exclusive consideration when forrnulatfng any

political, sodal, or educational agenda Rren during Muhammad Au's

westernization and development campaign, the institutions he set up

wete not intendeci to Iniprove the inteilectual outlook of the peopie,

ûwfng to this iimited vision, f d e education remaioed beyond the

scope of his educational poUdes.41 Although, the first educadonai

insdtutioa for wonien was set up as early as 1830- a schooi of

midwifery attached to the maca l college, newly estabiished under

Muhammad AU-42, the interest in women's education, as eariier

aoted, was not so much due to systematized phns for sodal

development, but to the desire to maximize practical services to

strengthn the country43 Despite this consdous encouragement for

the general education of women, women's schools, too, suffered the

already-rnentioned relative neglect of education under Abbas and

Said. Under ismail, however, so eager was he to conform Egypt to

western standards that renewed offidal support of women's

education became a primary ambition. He promptly ordered the

waqf (charitable trust) administration to open a school for girls.

Women's education had m e r support h m Ismail's third Me,

41~ee j. Heywbrth-me, An to the of . . London: Luzac & Co, 1938,229.

%Vahaib, Ijducation of W- 45. Ehasbar states that upon graduation, the midwives were given the same rank as men of the medicai school. See Ehashiu? "Mamie Edmtion", 12. 431t is interesthg to note the difncuity confronteci in attempting to attract mmen to secondary schmis because of the social stigma attached to femaies conducting life outside the confines of the home. Because of this, the School of Elakimas (femaie health practitioners, 1832). for instance, was forced to recruit women f h u the lower dasses and Abyssïnian and Sudanese slave giris. See Tucker, -th Ce- 120. See ais0 Wahaii,

45.

TcheslhmeMet, who founded a school for the daughters of the

elite.44

During the British occupation, government policy towards

women's education revealed dissenting attitudes, with the evident

uncertainty lying ultimately in the manner with which "the woman

questionn should itseif be dealt. Lord Cromer, the former Sir Evelyn

Baring, British agent and consul general of Egypt (1 883-1907), in his

Annual Report of 1891, expresseci, "1 wish to state my very strong

conviction ... that the East can never really advance unless some

thomugh- but, of course, gradual- change be made in the position of

women. Mucation is oniy a part- albeit an important part- of the

general questionnPs He was certainly an advocate of women's

education and welcomed state expenditure in the area. His strongest

argument was that university education deserved the greatest

attention. Cromer, therefore, "endorseci the nadonalist demand for

an Egyptian university in terms which further underscorecl his vision

of education as a plUar of the prevaiiing social 0rder."46 Such an

order, however, tolerated the absence of higher ducational

opportunitles for women who were not included in the nationabt

prcgnm.47 First and foremost, however, Cromer wished to see the

4 4 C - , v . . 11. h 1873 TcheshmeAfet spomred one of ody two state-sponsored primary schools for giris (with the exception of the School of Rakimas ) to educate slaves and daughters of myai and officiai families. The suppression of the slave trade in 1877 causeci the schaal to lose its main dientele and with the deposition of Ismaii, TsheshmeMet was forced to withdraw her patronage. See also Baron, D m ' s Av&&ig in EgygI, 128. On the estabWunent of a girls' school by the waqf administration, see Tucker, 125. 45~ucker, 125. 4%aron, 129. 47~bid Cromer's emphasis on the importance of higher education echoed the poliaes of Muhammad Ali of 70 years earlier. Attention given to p&my and

- I

university organized "in such a way as to atüact the sons of wealthy

Egyptians ... who wili corne to regard the time spent in study at the

unhrersity as a necessary part of their inteiiectuai equipment for Me,

in the same way as- in Europe- the training at great universities is

regarded by the sons of higher classeC.48 Not oniy is this officiai

expression an apparent Ilmiting of the scope of public education, but

it seems to resonate with the contradictory nature of the state's

position on the education of women. This k especially apparent in

light of the fact that Cromer inidaiiy tmk it upon himself to grant a

large number of women free entry into govenunent schools to

promote enroihuent Mer the attendance quota was met, however,

he gradually eiiminated free educatioa for girls kause it was no

longer deemed a necessity in attracting students, and the female

student population once again dropped.49 Altbough the government

reaüzed the social importance of educating women, it only did so to

the extent of satismg a iirnited need. Anything over and above

that need would be accommodating a dispensable saturation.

Towards the latter end of British rule a restrictive element

within the existing scope of women's education took firm hold on

Egyptian sodety. Certainly, the "uses" of female education, in

reference to the prwious mention of its "necessity" , graduaüy came

to be defineci in terms of how educational training would fahion

better mothers out of its f-e students. Although opportunîties for

secondary schools was for the most part negiected in favor of higher education. Such a system has been cafied a "reverse educational pyramidn and by aU counts works to the detrimwit of womm in retarding the devdopment of their educational oppornmities- espedaily when access into the system is denied. See also Cochran, 4-5. c 48~ucke.r. 124. 4 9 ~ . 125.

female elernentary education undoubtedly expandecl under British

rule both at the primary and secondary bels, the nature of their

training, howwer, remainecl limiteci. The emphasis shifted from

practical, technical instruction to curriculums based on cookery,

needlepoint, and laundry l'which aim(ed) at preparing them for the

duties of home Me." 50 It was a shEî towards a more conservative,

traditional orientation.5 1

Despite Crorner's cMms extoihg the strident advances in

women's education, "there is N t t k evidence that British polides much

advanceci the cause of female educaiion; on the contrary, the overail

effect may have ken ... to siderail women's schooüngn for the better

part of 40 years.52 PWpp notes that a qualifieci examination of this

institutionaüzed gender-molding and similar educationai polides

shows that the demands "were strictly orientecl toward the better

fuifiilment of the 'natural tasicsr in house and family." He notes that

a woman's right to education was based on the requirements of tasks

within the social unit of which she Is a member ["the family unit, not

a h u m individual (unit)"], and "net on ber potential capabilides as

an individual"33 There was no intention to lead the woman out of

her traditionai realm into a more public arena of positions and

professions; "any such intention is qlicitly denied".54 And as these

%id., 126. Sl~ucker further notes that by the 1900s, "the State was more concermd with the type of education offered and strove to âevdop basic iiteracy and domestic skills in girl students while guarding against too much education of an impractical nature which wodd divert them from their 'naturai avocation'", 127.

I - schools hcreasingly demanded tuition fees, necessity being sideiined 1-.

for social conservatism, those unable to pay were effkctively denied

attendanccss It would, therefore, foIIow that with the eiimination of

this notion of "necessityn, any provisions made by the state towards

women's education would be excessive. Accordingly, women who did

not feel the effects of school closiags and state budget cuts were fiom

the upper and middle classe of sodety because they had the

resources to pay for private or other instruction.

THE PROTO-FEMINIST DIMENSION

The economic dynamics here outlined that had corne to form

the very classist reaiity of educationd access for women was further

responsible for the growing nucleus of the then proto-feminist

movement. It should be understood that the directives of such a

campaign do not necessarfiy mirror those of western culture.

Although it is traditionaiiy acceptai that the notion of feminism is a

western phenornenon (itself a debate which fs beyond the

Eramework of this paper), its eastern and speciRcaliy Egyptian

counterpart was fashioned out of a different pattern of cultural,

sodal, and reïigious criteria. Essentially begun as a non-political and

largely non-confrontational movement (although the very notion of a

"woman issue1' in a patriarchal Islamfc sodety is by nature an

aggressive concept as it rocks the s t a t u quo of the established &O-

economic system), early f e s t &des were almost exclusively

3 restricted to women (and a fav men) of the upper and rniddle

classes. By and iarge, it was not a unilfled movement with a solitq

voice. It was, in fact, divisive within and between nationaiist,

reformist, and early feminist platforms. The importance and sociai

necessity accorded to women's education was taken up by a wide

spectmm of groups as an essential factor of th& respective agendas,

but with different emphases. Not aü agreed upon the extent and

dimensions of women's education (an issue which WU be discussed

at greater length in the foiiowing chapters), but the common

components, women and education, would later serve as a subtle yet

signiflcant factor in unifytng the country in its journey towards

independence.

When discussing emergent feminism concwrently with

education in Egypt, one must reaiize that as the latter gradually came

to be the exclusive domain of the upper and middle classes- urban

women W g within the conventions of the harem system- it was

within tbfs atmosphere that feminist ideology took stronger root.56

According to PhUpp, mch a phenornenon "does not seem surprising,

considering that a certain amount of education and exposure to

Western features were needed to be able to question the traditionai

position of women. Such opportunides existeci only in the upper and

rniddie ciasses at the timeW.57

s%'he harem system, devoid of aii the imaginary settings that popculture idealizes, enforced domestic sedusion and segtegation of the sexes. According to Margot Badran, "this institution for the control of women by the paPiarchal -y was iinked to ClasS. Seciusion in the home ws not possible for lower cIass urban and peasant women because th& daily work necessitateci a certain amount of interaction be- the sexesn. See Badran, "Chigins of Feminism ia EgypC, 157-159. s7~hilipp, "Femhkm and Nationalist Poütics in Egypt", 283. Cole a h makes pointeci references to the economic dimezlsioas of Egyptian sodety as a whole

I- Women iiving in the lsohtbn of the harem, therefore, were the L.

f h t to manifest an awareness of the drcumstances of their gender.

They tranmibed books of prose and p t r y , pubiished biographical

dictionaries, wrote articles confronthg women's domestic seclusion

and their social strangulation, and exchangeci Ietters with each other.

This expression of a shared and burgeoning mutual consdousness

with other women in seclusion was perhaps the foundation of a

sisterhood; the Arst steps towards the dwdopment of a more

concrete union9

As these early protagonists of womenls emancipation

represented a srnall percentage of the bourgeois eiite, however, they

naturally addressed themselves to women of slmllar backgrounds.

The topics dealt with, as show by Phillpp and Sullivan, displayed I the exclusive nature of these women's concerns, emphasizing the fact 1

that "the emancipatory movement had no intention of king a m a s

movement addressing women h m ail ciasses of the nation."sg

Among the concerns, for instance, were such popular subjects as the

issue of breast-feeding (th& it should be done by the mother herself

and not a wet nurse despite the inconvenience), the education of

children (which should not be overseen by servants as it would ill-

and ultimately notes that the country's position in the world market not ody shaped its interna1 development and structure, but "had a major impact on the position and status of traditionally underpriviIeged groups üke women... It seems probable that state capitaüsm in the 19th century had the effect of amxally inaeasing the exciusion of m i d d l ~ s women and restrictiog them to househoid managernenC. Cole, "Feminism, Class, and Islam in Tum-of-the- Century Egyptn, 390. Badran fartha notes economics as a factor in feminist awareness. She points to inaeased travei to Europe by weaithier Egyptian women, "where they experfenced ht-hand Me outide the harem system," See Badran, "ûrigins of Feminism", 158. 58Badran, "Ferninisis, Tsram and Nationn, 15. S%ilipp, "Feminism and Nationaüst Politics in Egypt", 284.

Influence them with lower ciass attitudes), and other privileged

issues such as the management of large households and the

supervision of servants.60 No doubt, it was due to this very issue of

theh heightened status that these women were able to express their

concerns and advocate their ideas in public in the first place.

However, as Sullivan remarks, "while class provideci a certain

freedom, it may also have reinforced consemative restraints and

caused them to restrict their ag enda... What they dîd not advocate is

pmbably as important as what they supportedn, as the above

examples demonstrate.61 Suiiivan points out, for instance, that

marriage was not discouraged, nor was t h e support for women of

the lower classes who typically feel the economic burden of large

famfHes. There was no suggestion that women should seek

independence from men, but instead work to earn their respect.62

With the institution of marriage and chlldren king the assumed

future for most women, the early femfnists turned their attention to

these, more domestic matters. Suiiivan notes the rationaie: "the

family had to be strong, eâucated men needed educated wives... to

raise th& children ..A Ifanything other than thb pTeSCrfbed c o r n

of events were to occur (Le. divorce), it would "weaken the family

and uItimateiy weaken Egyptn.63 in tenns of practicaîity, it could be

%id, 283-284. 61sulIivan, 3 1. 62Ibid. 63Ibid. In this respect, with the safety and unity of Egypt b&g of primary importance, the early women's movement came to be viewed as part of the liberai nationalist cause- an issue that will be iater addresseâ. What is noteworthy here is simply that these nationaiists (versas the more

t- consenrative ones who represented a counter-response to the growing women's movement) recognized the importance of an edacated population to dwelop the country's strength to its full p0tentia.L if women felt the benefits

assumed that th& demand for education maintaineci national support

of paramount importance for the entire population. However, as

eariier mention&, not oniy did education corne to be vlrtually

resîricted to the upper classes, but it became a focus of feminist

concems- a further indication of its exclusivity. Basic problems of

health care and chiid-rexing, and economic dures as suffered by

the lower classes were not evm on the agenda. They were certainly

issues that could be confrontai through education- an education

that, again, these women did not have access to.

With this increased expression and interchange h m the

growing literacy of upper-class women, the communion of future

feminists expandeci and assumed broader, more visible and vocal

identities. When Eugenie Le Brun, a French woman and Muslim

convert, opened the first salon for women in the early 1880s,

"upper-class Egyptlan women pioneered in collective debate on their

iivesn.w It was a setting that fostered debate over issues of veiling

and seclusion (again, upper-class concems), both king of particular

interest to Le Brun after her study of Islam and subsequent

discovery that neither were reiigious prescriptions, as is comrnoniy

accepted, but social conventionsP

of this drive by mension and not through their independent recognition as human beùigs, then so be it. The result was the same granting, albeit slowly, educacionaI opportunities for women.

The foundation of the women's press by Hind Nawfal(1860-

1920) in 1893 was the next step as it estabIlshed an official forum

for larger numbers of women, literate women, to address their

concerns and be heard.66 Women had been contributing to journals

founded by men since the 1880s, but the existence of an exclusively

women's publication was not only radical and potentially

Inflammatory, but "it remaineci anathema to entrenched male

patriarchy which has iinked f d e immorality with litera cy...

(women) could absorb sutwersive ideas and engage in dangerous

communication which would lead to unseemiy behaviour."67 The

magazine's editor even attacheci a discIaimer to the introduction of

her publication after the manifesta describeci its "solen purpose as

"defend(ing) the rights of the deprived and draw(ing) attention to

the obligations due.. express(fng) (women's) id a... and take(ing)

pride in pubiishing the best of their workn; furthemore, she stated,

"but do not Imagine that a woman who writes in a journai is

comprised in modesty or violates her purity or good behaviour."68

As a result, since the content was not as revolutionary as the

66~alhami describes how women's iiteritture around this time was "tolerated as long as it conformeci to the recognitable themes floating in the sphere of male iiterary activi ty... (Women's journaiism in Egypt) typined bot . the rising self- confidence of women and their continued subordination to the maie power structure". Talhami, Ghada Hashem, . . - w- GainSville: University of Florida Press, 19%, 7. 67Badra.u and Cooke, eds, the x x k 68Badran, Feminists. 15-15. Badran notes that through the medium of an official publication and despite the poteniial character stains that womenfs expression might remit in, "they coilectively transcendecl their domestic confinement and by claiming their names and voices women took responsibility for themselves and accepted accotmtability".

pubiication itself, the women's press dedicated its pages to helplng

improve women's f d y roles, and to the importance of women's

education.69

There existeci certain members of consemative factions (a

platform soon to be discussed), howwer, who belleved that the

women's press and other female magazine publications espousing

women's new-found discourse and early feminist ideology were

simply plots to weaken the unity of Egypt. They pointeci to the

foreign origins and non-Musiim identities of the founders and editors

of women's magazines (Hind Nawfal, for instance, was a Syrian

Christian; see Appendfx, Table 1). Of the 14 women founders of pre-

World War 1 Egyptian women's magazines, "one was Copt, two were

Jewish, six- probably eight- were Christian, and two were Mus Hm...

nine, perhaps ten, of the women were b m S y r k Only three were

definitely Egyptiansn.70 Not only is this an obvious reflection of the

situation of the Egyptian press at the t h e (that there is such a

predominance of foreign editors) , but this emphatic foreigmess of

the early feminist movement was the precise element that such

Egyptian nationalists as Mustafa Kamil viewed with "unveiled

%id., 16. It must be understd and the importance m u t be stresseci that although the issues addresseci in eariy vocal feminist consdousness were not potitical in nature, demanding the franchise or social parïty, the very confrontation of the status quo- femaie domestic imprisonment- [a term used by the early feminist writer Aisha ai-Taymuriyyah (1840-1902)] and their ernergence from king v U y and visi'b1y sirenced, was in and of itseif nar- tantamount to social rwolution, 7ophillpp, "Feminism and Nationaüst Politicsn, 281. Arab inteiiectuaiism was spurred on much earlier in Syria and Lebanon than in Egypt Jesuit missionary schools flourished in the Levant in the seventeenth century. Arnerican Presbyterian missions Ianded in Beirut t ~ > hundred years later and established themSejves as a bedrock of educational proliferation in Maronite and other Christian communities.

hostiiityn as it fed into his perceived weakening of the Egypdan

national identity.71

At this point, it is important to address the reasons behind the

opposition to even bridled steps towards women's emandpation in

Egypt What were the elements in sodety that regardeci f d e

expression and communication as radical and as a potentiai threat?

Why was wornen's education, the chord of agreement, the middle

ground h m which a common goai could be dlrected? There was an

agreement in prlnciple, but a divergence in interpretation by the

parties involveci vis a vis womenls educational progress. An

understandhg of the rapid change of events- from the shedding of

coloniaiist d e to the formation of a separate, independent modern

state- that Egypt underwent, and the subsequent questionhg of its

Islamic identity were the more fundamental challenges of which

womenls emancipatfon formed a by-product. It was not the time for

the latter issue to take precedence in the actions of the state, or

within the greater conscience of Egyptian sodety. The course the

women's movement followed, however, managai to run parailel to

the more imminent @airs confronthg a people on the briak of

independence. To Nustrate this and ciarify the seemingly

formidable cornrnonatity between the two groups, the issue of

modernity within the Islamic context must be exploreci while

discussing the more reactionary response to the growing woman

question.

7LIbid. Mustafa Kamil was the leader of a M o n of Egyptian nadonalists (1 say faction gmply bmallse no singie group represented a unifieci platform) whose primary aim was the inmediate and absolute wacuation of the British and the eradication of mything that hinted of western influe~~ce.

INTRODUCTION

The tumultuous events that rocked the Egyptian state

throughout the nineteenth century were to unleash their full impact

on Egyptian society by the turn of the century. The developments

left the mtionallsts and the Islamists aiilce in a sea of contention as

to how tr, resolve the most pressing and critical issue that had

occupied the minds of Egyptian inteliecnials. What had expressed

itself in the form of apparent incompatibiiities and contradictions

over the traditional role of Islam in Egyptian Me was the result of a

prolongeci exposure to foreign influence.

As the Rnai arbiter of public and private iife, Islam, its

conveyors, and its incerpreters, had maintaineci their supreme

position as executors of the faith. Now, however, a much greater and

integral sodal Wty flourished behind the floodgate of eroding

traditionaihm the dar-al-Islam (house of Isiam) was on the verge of

a near-total cokpse. I t was a house that was decaying ftom within.

The events that led up to Egypt's independence, culminatirig in the

withdrawai of foreign intervention after World War 1, and the

developments thefeafter, seemed mere components of an underlying

and immecirate need for the renovation and reform of Mam.

Aithough based on a more historiai probe of Islamic identtty, the

questions generated were e q U y as apropos as when broaching the

cause h m the then-contempporary perspective of foreign influence.

The two are not mutually exclusive, and are, in fact, implidtly

interrelateci.

WESTERN INTERVENTION AND THE CRISIS OF MODERNITI

The process of Western intewention, effectively beginning with

Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, began what was to result in the

greatest challenge wer encountered in the IsIamic world; "gradual

colonial economic control gave way to poutical and military

dominance in the nineteenth century. Thus, for the first time in

Islamic history, Muslims found themselves ruled by the Christian-

West...".72 In the face of a cracked and fcillen umma, Muslîms

considered the question of their identity at the hands of their

colonial masters: "what had gone wrong in Isiam? Was there any

contradiction between revelation and reason, science and

technology? Was the Islamic way of Me capable of meeting the

demands of moderni ty?"73

The notion of current or 'modern' events had never More

been equated with such a degree of change. One must consider,

therefore, a deftnition as the startlng point to understanding its

signlficance. Cyri l l Black, an histotlan who recognizes the importance

of historical wolution, has dehed modernity as

the process by which historically woived institutions are adapted to the rapidly changing functions that reflect the unprecedented increase in man's knowledge, pemitting control over his environment, that accompanied the scientific revolution"?

Under these terms, a system aîiows for flexibility and potenthi for

development. Modernity and tradition are not antithetical, but are

fnherently part of the "infinite continuum". Black patterns

modernizing sodeties through four phases that delineate change:

1. "The Challenge ofModemity the initial codmntation of a sodety

within its traditional fiamework of knowledge, with modem ideas

and institutions, and the emergence of advocats of modemis.;

2. me ConsolidaCion of Modernizing Leadership the transfer of

power h m traditional to modemking leaders in the course of a

normally bitter revolutionary struggle often lasting several

genemtions;

3. Economlc and Sixid Tmsfonnadon~ the development of

economic growth and social change to a point where society is

transfomecl h m a predominantly rurai and agrariaa way of We to

one predominantly urban and industrial; and

4. The In t e p Gan of Sodety the phase in which economic and

social transformation produces a fundamental mrganization of the

social structure thmughout the society."75

74~lack, C m . The -CS of ~ M o d e r n u a t i o 9 London: Ehrper & Row, 1967, p. 7. 7 S ~ l a ~ k , 67-89.

Modemization as conceived above first took place in Europe, most

extensively in England and France, as an outgmwth of the Industriai

Revoludon. Countries that f a under the colonial domain of the two

'modem' powers absorbed, or had imposed upon them, the latent

after-effects of 'modernizingr dwelopments. Nations with a similar

social and cultural makeup as th& European brethren may have

been more amenable to evotutionary transformations, or at least had

a working model in England or France which they could emulate.

Such was not the case with countries whose tradition, religion,

language, and very concept of king was cut from a different mold of

understanding. In Egypt, Isiam had ken the dominant force h m

whlch ai i Me, law, rationale, tradition and communication had

generated. The French occupation by Napoleon's forces, therefore,

was much more than simply a foreign tenure. It chaiîenged the

nature, value system, and social structure of 1200 years of

Islamic/Egyptian history. Egypt had been chaiienged before, by the

Mongols (1 25 8) and the Ottomans (15 1 7), and had survived 300

years of Ottoman occupation with their IslamidEgyptian identity

active and intact Forced once again to question this same ego with

the prospect of certain change, Egypt buckied under the pressure

produdng generations of intellectuals who rose to answer the

awesome cal1 of the 'challenge of modernity'.

2). The m t i a n Con text

Before discussing those indfduals who stood at the forefront

of modern thought and actively advocated modernization, 1 would

Iike to Mer back to Black's four phases of modernity with respect to

the Egyptian experience. Bearlng in mInd that the time sequence

involveci for our purposes does not extend beyond 1922, Egypt prior

to this period was acutely and aggressivdy hvolved in the first

phase of transformation, the 'challenge of modernity', for the century

and a score that it had been exposed to foreign d e . As Black's

categories constitute a completion of the outlined terms, It is

important to recognize that although Egypt only reaiized the flrst

phase of transformation, it experienced a range of trernors from the

foiiowing three. The fact that there was no consoiidated leadership

(phase two), revolutionary social or economic changes (phase three),

or a full integration of these transfomations into society (phase

four), only means that they were nwer brought to completion as

Black's definition would require. 'Modernfiing leadershipr, as such,

existeci as more of a nebulous movement in intellectuai circles.

Based on the ide& of al-Afghani and Muhammad 'Abduh,

modernizing thought among political leaders gaiaed notoriety at the

end of the last century whiie pladng itself at the front of national

debate. (This it managed to do with greater facility during the early

1880s and 1890s because of a popular antipathy towards the British

occupation. The issue of leaâership, therefore, was already on the

national table.) The ideals gaineci momentum under the disciples of

these men, such as Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, Qasim Amin, and

Muhammad Rashid RI&, s p a . g officiai opposition fkom the more

conservative voices of Mustafa Kamii and Talat Harb.76

With respect to the third watershed mark of rnodemity, it is

again true that economfc and sodal transformaions never

xmmEested themselves at this time in creatiag an urban and

industrial~entered sodety ( h m one predomtnatitly rural and

agrarian). However, it was another 'phase' that Egyptian society was

faunlllar with, Cole notes that, "under British colonlal rule, the

process whereby the power of eutes in the countryside had begun ta

reverse and the center of gravity m g toward the large u r b

areasn.77 ALthough this is very much an upp-class dominated

migration, it outlines the Intniductory steps taken towards this

particuiar transformation.78 The fourth phase, wen today, is

difflcult to evaiuate, parti-ly as it i m p h a social reorganization

basied on the completion of the previous categories. The

characteristics of phases two and tbree are, therefore, what must be

76~he purpose here is to demonstrate that although niodernrPng * . leadership

was not yet co~lsolidated as a national M v e , it was recognized as a viable political force. The creation of political parties in 1907, such as the People's Party under the Mends of Muhammaci 'Abduh, the Nationaiist Party of Mustafa Kamf, and the Constitutionai Reform Party of Sheikh 'Ali Yusuf, aystallized this reaiity and gave it an official forum kom which to launch the debate on modernity- See Albert Hourani, &&is T h o m in the L i u . London: Oxford University Press, 1967, pp 193-221, and J.M. Ahmed, Intellecnial OnOlgS

. . Na- Londo~ Oxford University Press, 1960, pp 58-84.

n~ole, 388. He ïater points out that Egypt was mtentiollszny kept on the periphery of the deveioping worid indusniai market, so Britain codd maintain its own security and perpetuate the cyde of economic dependence that h had created for Egypt (Ibid). 7%th Cole and Judith Gran bave described how it was the upper-dass hdholders who became the nouveau capitalist bourgeoisie; from produchg Cotton for the world market and bfitllching out into banking and commerce

- once urbanized. See the introduction by Lois Beck and Kikkie Keddie to W- { .:& e W a pp. 2-34, and Judith Gran, "Impact of the Wodd Market on

Egyptian Women", MEiüP Reports, 58 (Jme 1977), 3-7.

further clarified in order to understand more fully the social and

poiitical thought behind the development of women's education in

pre-independence Egypt.

3). Modemity and Social Pmgfess

Pursuing Black's pattern of modernizatfon, point hm, "the

consolidation of moâemizing Ieaclership" , would necessarily have to

take place before any thought of social progress was addressed. In

terms of sodal, rnodernizing change (possibly an event of

revolutionary proportions, as Black had impiied in hfs definition), the

mamer in which change occurs and is achieved, therefore, depends

largely on the policies of the leadership. As such, the simple fact that

Egypt may have been confroated with modemizing thought and

developments (for m p l e , the reallzation of the necessity of

educating the nation's women), was not enough to drive the

population to act on the requisite transitions invotved in

implementing poiicy. A Society Rrst has to be made aware of and

then to accept the need for change before it is reaiized, as In phase

one. The priorities of leadership, however, will dictate how, when,

and with what speed the process will OCCUT. Modernlzation in Egypt

was a product of radical thought- which, by definition, implies that

it rested on the periphery of soda1 acceptance. in the matter of

women's education, the reconciliation lay between the traditional

maIe power structure and Islamic conservarism, on the one hand,

and the 'modeniized' view of wornen in the public arena, on the

other.79 The value system that is here confionted beionged to the

rural and agrarian majority frame of refmce. The tradition and

the ideology of the Egyptian majority was the status quo. They were

not the very finite segment of the population that had access to

modern thought and Western standards. The setting, therefore, is

one in whkh the systematized understanding of the need for change

lagged behind the dominant ideology based on tradltion.80

Migration to urban centers by the new middle class, the iand-

holders, was the impetus that broke the hold of tradition on Egyptian

consdousness. This move by the nouveau-riche placed them at the

epicenter of modern trends and development- a characteristic of

urban culture-, and with respect to women's education, forced direct

acknowledgrnent of its importance. However, as Cole notes, even the

leaclefship of professionals and inteliectuals, the presumed

champions of thIs modem enlightenment, held contradictory vfews

as to how to reaiize the ment trends and were forced to compmmise

79Leih Ahmed has noted this to be the fundamentai heart of the conflict majntahing that, "Islam and f a s m are natrrtally incompatible ... the literalisrn of Isiamic civilfiation and the complete enmeshing of the kgal tradition with this literalism means that this incompatibility can only be resolved... by the complete severance of Isiamic tradition h m the issue of the position and rights of women." LeIla Ahmed, "Early Feminist Movements in the Middle Eastn, W o m . Freda Hussein, ed., Laadon: Crwm Heim L t d , 1984,121. Y v o ~ e Haddad notes, however, that throughout wbat she has termed "the western Wengen and the reaiization of the urgent necessity for radical social change in preindependence Egypt, there was a common recognition by both nationaiist and lslamist rwolutionaries that the oppression of women in Arab societies is a crippiing and degenerative disease. She States that all sides "have appeared to agree that the prevailing condition of the Musiim woman is unacceptable and that her transformation is crucial to the transformation of society as a whole" ("Islam, Women and RevoIutionW, 140-141). Disagreement lies in the manner and process of this transformation. This wiii be discussed at greater length in the next chapter. 8% aclmowledgment m e r supporteci by Biack outlines that as these value systems are so enmeshed in the coilective historicai psyche? tangible change in said system will be slow in coming. See Black, 80.

with their traditionai tendencies. As such, "they supported the

liberai ideal of greater education for women while simultaneously

arguing for strict veiiing and sedusionn;81 the latter king the

traditional eüstence for most Egypttan MusUm women. Despite the

reticence of even the most ardent supporters of modemkation to

more wholiy and swiftly embrace the changing tides, the important

factor is that they did recognize the need for a social change.

Whether or not they compromtsed on tbek traditional ideais of

conservatism and propriety out of a recognition of progress or out of

practicaiity (recalling, of cowse, Muhammad AU'S use for women in a

more educated and participatory fashion for the national good),

women, by extension, benefited fkom the process.

MODERNIZATION AND EDUCATION

With resolutions for change &jing in public sentiment, perhaps

the issue here is not one of gender acceptame in roleplaying by a

patriarchal society, but the grudging admission h m the

conservative corner that the bedrock of lsiamic tradition is being

questioned. The suggestion t h t change was a secondary

consequence of conservative accession indicates a Iack of awareness

of the implicit mutual involvement between modernization and

education. The defenders of tradition or of maintaining the status

quo, such as the 'dama, may have given a strained and cursory nod

to advancements in wornenrs education while at the same time

desiring the passage of mdernity to fall by the wayside. This, again,

defies the interdependent datbnship between education and

modernizathn. Not only is educatlon a variable of modemization,

but it becornes an object of the pmess even before the hil force of

progiess is realized.a2 Shipman categorizes educaîion as "an integral

subsystem" of the modernization process and suggests that

"education can only be meaningfuliy studied as a part of mmy social

institutions ... and in light of the functions that It mes during

modernizationn.~3 Simply, education ia a modernizing society serves

as the b k between the "modemizing personaiity" and his

"sumunding socio-cultural eavironment". 84 Saqib bas pointed out

ttiat in this respect education ïs "consdously employed by modern

societies as an instrument of change in the poiitical and economic

social systems ... For this reason, the prioriw assigneci to education in

the programme of modernizadon is not out of placeW.as Despite

arguments defénding and criticizing the role of education in

deveioping countries, that there is a significant interaction benveen

education and the changing system is g e n d y accepted.86 The

precise signfficance of the ment of the mie of education within a

particular modernizing society largeiy depends on its stage of

development, as outheci in Black's phases.87

%aqib, 12, 83~hipman, andod~ririzadon. 10. 84Shipman, 10. %a@, 12. 8 6 ~ o s t scholars seem to assert that "education is the key that uniocks the dmr to modernity", as Shipman does. Others maintain, homer, that "in spite of the apparent economic superiority of the besteiucation nations... there is üttk direct evidence of the conmiution that education has made to modernizationn. See C.A. Anderson la MJ). Shipman, 43-45. 87Saqib, 13.

When the relationship between education and modernization is

realized in a developing sodety and the transition from phase two to

phase three is underway, only then can the society fully realize its

human potenüal. As Anderson has argued, "the k t assurance for a

stimulating and constructive educational system is to surround it

with a society that has vigorous impulses towards change and

initiative. Schools alone are weak instruments of niodemization; but

when weii-supporteci they are powerful."as Again, the implication is

that it is the poiicies of leadership that will determine the success of

an educationd program- Black's second point, However, the

awareness and activities that exist prior to offlciai recognition of the

importance of education are equally if not more important in terms

of hastening the process of change and bolstering an initiai level of

support. In the case of Egypt, certainly Muhammad AU had enforced

the notion of educating women and successive regimes foiiowed in

his footsteps with varying degrees of interest and success. Yet, it

was not until the latter part of the nineteenth century that women

and men &e more vocally and visibly reacted against women's

traditional roles. The estabUshment of women's jownals and salons

as wider forums for the expression of women's voices, as mentioned

earlier, is an exampie. The added support of male modernists like

Muhammad 'Abduh and W i m Amin, who will be discussed Later,

gave the women's rnovement a valldity and strength that it may

have otherwise lacked if women had to stmggle for th& rights on

their own withui the patriarchal system. In this respect, it must be

88~nderson, C. Arnold, "The Modernization of Ekiucation", Myron Weiner, ed., Md-uon, The -CS of . . Gmw& New York: WC Books, 1966,68-80.

understood that the process and interreiationship berneen

modemization and educatlon had a supplemenmt hurdle when

women were factored into the equation. It was not that male

secuiarists or Iskmists were simply opposed to the notion of

educating women: m a t r&ed the sodal vaiue in thls.89 The point

of contention was that the caii for the education of women, from both

male and female corners, came under the rubric of 'women's

liberationt- an issue whfch has generated some of the most causdc

discussion and controversy in Egypt over the past century. The

weight of this term, which levied radicai associations on women's

liberties, encompassecl a wider specanim of more caustic demands.

The seemingly innocuous c a l for ducational rtghts was, correctly or

not, judged in this c0ntext.w The basic confiict, as Haddad notes, is,

that "the herttage of social and cultural Institutions of men's honor,

pride and àignity has ken inextriably bound to the modesty and

chas tity of th& women. "91 Consequently, any attempts at

modification or 'Innovation' (categorized as 'unIawfuil in Islamic

jurisprudence), to custom and tradition, which for thirteen centuries

had been sanctioned by religious authorities, resulted in fierce

debates by afl parties. The issue was not whether Islam was the

source of restrictive elements against women, but how sodety came

to hterpret Islamic injunctions as hherent obstructions.

89The content of education was debated with rradiaional Muslims insisting that womenrs education shouid be resaicted to the study of religion, reading, writing, geography, history, and mathematicsn (Haddad, 145). It a controiled ailowance, but an aüowance nonetheles by a group who traditionaily beiieved in women's domestic sedusion and whose primary function they thought to be the bearing of childrea (Ibid, 144). golbid., 139, gl~bid., 142.

MODERNITY AND RELIGION: ISLAM WOMEN AND EDUCATION

The outcome of these debates was naturally of a decidedly

religious nature. The quest for an Islamic mandate sent the

respective parties back to the religious sources, the Qur'an, the

hadith, and the shari'a, to substmüate thei. convictions.92 In the

course of this pursuit, many produced findings and iiterature

detailing the virtuous and elevated role that Islam had granted to

women (perhaps defending what was perceived as a challenge or

cridcism to the justness of I s W c teaching) and the rights accordeci

to her therein: the right to inherit, to maintaln wealth and carry out

business transactions, and the right to be educated.93 Indeed

knowledge and its possession is highly esteemed in Islam. The very

purpose of "Divine revelation and sencihg down prophets has ken

explaineci in the Qurtan as the communication of knowledge: 'The

prophet recites unto people Cod's revelation: causes them to gmw,

and imparts them knowledge and wisdom' (Sura 3: 164) "94. Other

such verses exhort the ahf al-Umma fpeople of the (Islamic)

community] towards the path of knowledge, and even the Prophet

g21bid. 931bid. Haddad further notes that when dealing with specuiative or comprehensive change, the parameters of such reform have been bound by the fact that, "out of the 100 verses in the Qir'an believed to be proscriptive or prescriptive in nature and not sabject to change, eighty percent deal with issues relating to women... This rneaas that di proposeci changes, regardless of their source, can oniy generate conflict since they trespass on the domain of

,.. revelation.". See p. 143. %aqib, 42.

has said that it is the duty of wery MusUm man and woman to seek

knowledge. There are other famous hadiths that state this explicitly:

Seek knowledge fiom the mdle to the grave, and acquire it even though it be in Chlna

He who leaveth hh home in search of knowledge, wwalketh in rhe path of W.

Acquire howledge: iit enables the possessof to diseiaguish righ t from wrong; it Dgh te th up the pa th to heaven. I t is your filend in the desert, your society ia solitude, and pur companlon when you are mendless. lt guideriz p u tu happiaess; it sustaineth you in adversiW. Ir is an ornament among fkiends, and an amour agafnst your enemies.95

The Qur'an has said that:

God wil i raise fn rank those of you who believe as w d as those of you who are given knowIedge.96

God bears witness that.. men embued with knowledge main tain His crea tion in justice97

Say, shaü those who know be deemed equal wiih those who do notP8

9SPidcthall, MM., "The Islamic Cuihxe", in rsIamrc 1 (l972), 151-163. 9fQpr'an, 582. g71bid, 3:18. 98Ibid. 2:269. The very notion and importance accorded to Musli. education, as is here evidenced, goes badc to the Prophet himself who first taught his cornpanions the Qrir'an and its meaning. Even later, More the formation of the îkst Islamic state in Medina, Mnhammad asked the literate among the prisoners of war at the battie of Ba& to teach the Meciinan chiïdren to read and write. As Saqib notes, "the Prophet's example as an educator and teacher inevitably became the most pious act for bis foliowers, and his khalifas and nilers after them regard (the continuance of dacation) as their sacred duty". Saqib, 66.

Such scripture is pointed to as evidence that the very nature of L Islam is righteous and just in its treatment of women, haUing their

sociai worth alongside that of men, and emphasking the strictest

adherence to an educated populace. It was not Islam that needed to

be restructureci. The caiis for sodal change and rejuvenation merely

pointed to a reiigion that no longer existeci. Critics and reformists

maintained that Egypt had abandoned the essence of Islam and was

now a product of its decay. The tenets of the faith had the essential

components of equaiity that those in favor of modernization

sought.99 It was, therefore, only the religion itself that had to be

read anew within a progressive context in order for the Egyptlan

nation to be restored to its glorious former self. This, the

traditionallst rationalization against modernization, decrying its

Ioathsome, degenerative characteristics as antithetical to the Islamic

tradition, demonstrates the lack of understanding of the nature of

progress and soda1 transformation. 'Education' could not happen in a

vacuum, in exciusivity, while denying its accompanying agents that

are an impiicit part of the modemizing process. Women, therefore,

could not simply 'be educated' and later be expected to ignore the

ground sweii of new thoughts and ideas they had witnessed and

ingesteci as the traditionaiîsts, the maintainers of the status quo, may

99Even the modernists and secularists, as WU be iater discussed, adopted the reiigiow argument that Islam itseif needed to be reexamined witbin a modern context They maintaineci that ideai Islam empIoyed rationality and castigated the stagnant nature of taqlid (traditi0mi.i.m). "The Qn'an repeatedly exhorts its adherents to observe, to reflect, to think, to ponder, to reason, and to leam nom the naturai phenornena that are pattemeci to change and altemate: The aeation of heaven and earth, of night and &y, the vessels that cross the seas for the use of men, the faii of rain which brings life to a dead earth; the animation of the creatures, the orientation of the winch and subjection of the douds between heaven and earth- aii are signs for those who reason'." Sura 2:164 in Saqib, 39.

have desired. That there was a generai consensus on the need of

sociai restoration (traditionalrsts recognizing a religious, and hence

sodal decay, and modemizers desiring various degrees of social

overhaul) was an important unQing reaiization as it gave the

country the impetus for change The Qur'anic verse: "God will not

alter what is in people until they alter what is in themseives,"l~ was

the reiigious justification the Islamic state required to advocate such

a process. The way in which this change would take place, however,

was the focus of contention.

The nature of such transformative thoughts expresseci by both

modernists and Islamists constituted revolutionary activity.

However, aii sides in Egypt "have recognized and challengeci the

oppression of women," citing their lack of ducation as a primary

cause of this social iii. 101 Yet molution, w hich by definition

connotes a certain degree of upheaval, has traditionaiiy been

hwned upon by Sunni Islam, viewhg it as disruptive to the social

orderJO2 "Qur'anic injunctions to obey Cod, the Prophet, and those in

positions of leadership" may have b e n employed by the 'dama to

maintain the status quo, but "revolutionaries of various allegiances in

the twentieth century have ideaiized revolution as a positive agent in

the h-ansforrnation of society."Lo3 Whether viewed as a volatile

l%pr'an, 13:12. wkidad, 140. lo2saqib, on page 59, quotes N i e Keddie pointing out that the 'ulama had become reconàled "to the acceptance of almm any nominaiiy Musiim authority as a preferable alternative to discord or revolt". In Sdulaxs- and Safis, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972, 1-14. The reference is over Ottoman conml of the Egyptian smte, but the aversion to revolution despite foreign occupation is what is signincant. 103Hdda4 138-139.

process or simply a mechanism of change, the ideoiogy of revolution

was adopted by nationaüsts and modemists as a vanguard in the

struggle to redefine the Egyptian state. The opposition they

confront4 from the Islamist platform merely echoed the opposition

they rnaintained to the wider context of modernization.

CHAPTER THREE

INTRODUCTION

Egypt's contact and confrontation with the West, epitomized by

social transformations, presented a challenge for the country's

intellectuals and nationalist leaders. "Divergent discourses arose in

the context of modern state and class formation and economic and

poiiticai confrontation with the West."lo4 Throughout the nineteenth

century, the 'woman question' carne increasingly to the fore as a

public issue, one that each group beiieved crucial enough to confront.

It had become a visible and vocal concern, and the reaiization of the

potential social contribution of women propelleci men to take greater

interest in developing an acceptable role for them within the

changing Egyptian state. Several contenders and ideologues

appeared in the latter decades of the previous century positing

various theories on how best to shape sodaI &ourse in generai and

women's discourse in partîcular, within the volatile boundaries of

Egyptian consciousness. 'Wth the broadening of opportunfties for

education and the rise of women's feminist awareness, women who

had previously been the objects of prescriptive pronouncements

began to challenge patriarchaI domination."los

The chaiienge was wîthin a systern that compIemented a

growing need for women's issues to be addresseci. W~th altemating

interest and lack of concern, Egypt, since Muhammad AU, had been

promoting new, more extensive educational facilides and work

opportunities for women, particularly In medicine and teaching.i06

Simllarly, the growing arena of feminist discourse, both within the

urban harem and later in womenrs magazine pubiications, gave

women a wider exposure to the social circumstances of theh female

counterparts in modem societies. It presented the members of the

feminist movement with the impetus to react to their own conditions.

During colonial occupation and prior to the establishment of political

parties, the woments movement in Egypt was net C O M ~ C ~ ~ to any

organized pubiic movement; " it was (instead) the articulation of a

broad new philosophy" 107 that dweloped out of its own necessity.

Although irnmediateiy criticized as part of the "Western challenge",

the earliest articulation of women's feminist discourse preceded

colonial occupation, the rise of nationahm and Isiamic modernist

thought, and therefore predated the rationale for criticism as a

foreign importP8 However, as Margot Badran notes, whiIe the

earliest Muslim feminist expression "may not have been immediatdy

inspireci by Islamic modernism, it was not long before it developed

within this Framework."~~ The importance of this distinction was

the possibility that there might have been native deveiopment of

feminist thought. The intemal dimension to the movement may be

what granted it a form of legitimacy in later discourse, as the

-- -- -- p~

106lbid. ~07Ibid.,206. 1 % ~ mentioned in the fint chapter, pubüshed essays and poetry from the 1860s shows the iïrst discenuile public expression of feminist thought. See Phüipp, 279-282, and Baron, 13-37, I%~iran, 204.

response by reformlst and nationaiist men (such as Qpim Amin and

Mustafa kmlî) was situateci withIn the context of Islamic

modemism, Whether it was a response by male intektuals or an

evaluation of their own accord by women of what they perceived as

a saciai ill (the condition of women tn Egyptian Society), the woman

question became part of publlc debate.

The polemics that piagued, and continue to do so, feminisst and

1s W t positions produced poldcal consequences in offlcial

discourse, The Implications of cultural authendcity, modernity, and

Islamlc idenlty, vis a vis expanding feminist concerns (particularly

on the educationai front) for women, occupied center stage in the

discussion over its legitirnacy. The immediate response of the debate

was understood as a very broad ideology; the particulars of women's

concerns were as yet to be addressed. Although Musüm reformists

were the originators of the discussion of women's emancipation at a

pubiic level, it soon widened to include nationaiist opposition. As

Thomas PhiUpp observes,

the picture rhat presents itself at the end of the nineteenth century is indeed a coafusing one. Every shade of opinion regardhg the emandpation of wornen was represented, and nationaiists themselves were far from agreeing on the matter. Oniy one hct can be estabiished immediatdy: the issue was an essential one, directly touching the iife of everyonello

Whether viewed as a threat to the sodai fabric of Muslim Egypüan

identity, as was the case with nationalists such as Mustafa Kamil and

Talat Harb, or embraced as a positive step towards the country's

development as a progressive force in îiberating the whole of Society,

the issue of women's emandpation in Egypt tmk hold of the nation's

consciousness, paraiieiing the rise of independence sentiments among

the same parties.

MUSLIM REFORMISTS

As mentioned earlier, the initial debate by male inteiiectuals

over women's emancipation originated among MuslÎm reformists.

They were part of a movement that would later become known as

Islamic modemism, a doctrine enunciating the recondllation of Islam

with contemporary change. It maintained that, "an Islam correctly

interpreted and set free of traditional ballast was able to provlde a

viable system of beliefs and values even under the changed

drcumstances of modern times."llI It was, therefore, necessary to

answer the predicaments of modern Me and behavior by examuiing

the original sources of Islam. Accordingly, bellevers- whom Margot

Badran describes as "the leamed" since they were the ones most in

touch with and most knowledgeable of religious law and tradition-,

couid go straight to the Qu'an and the Hadith to Rnd direction in

I1llbid. As Albert Hoiaani notes that by 1860 there was recognition by a small gmap of officiais and teachers of the importance of reforming the empire; a f a t which codd not be underoiken without borrowing from European mïety. Qiestions arose as to the manner of reform and whether or not it should, in fact, be deriveci from European teacbings or h m Islamic law. Hourani maintaios that the nature of the questions demonstrates bth a cornmitment to reform as well as a desire to msintain fslamic tradition: "that modern refonn was not oniy a legimte but a necessary implication of the s w a l teachhg of Idam." Albert HoufaPt a. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983,67-68.

their daily hes as Muslims, and balance their discovery with

modern drcumstances. The use of gtihad, or independent Inquiry,

would aüow Musiims to Rnd a middle ground berneen tradition and

modemism without havhg to reiy on the exclusive interpretation

and guidance of the estabhhed reiigious authoritfes. The contention

of the reformist was that MusUms had saayed h m the righteous

patb of ttieir religion, and that original Islam must be retumd to

after so many centuries of its misinterpretatton. Many of the Ills that

were brought to pubiic attention through this new philosophy of re-

(self) examination, were associateci wtth the pracüce of the

oppression of women by men in the name of Islam. The position of

women had s u f f u in much the same way as greater Islam- again,

thmugh its mfsinterpretation, and, later, un-Islamic additions.1I2

Abuses connectecl to polygamy and divorce, for instance, were

considered gross and harmfiil distortions of original Islamic

doctrine, 1 13

The intellectual leader of the reformist movement was Sheikh

Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905), renowned scholar of aiAzhar and

Mufti of Egypt (1899) , a position which de facto piaced him in the

position of supreme (rdgious) authority of Islamic law. Albert

Hourani characterizes 'Abdub's thought as manrfesting a

consciousness of nInner-decay" of Musiirn societies and the realjzadon

of the need for a self-styled revivalP4 He States that the ortùodox

112PhiIipp, 278. 1 13lbid, 1 14~ourani, mit Thowt in the Ag%, 136. This noüon of &val is amibuteci to the radical ideals of 'Abduh's mentor, Sayyid jarna1 amin "al- Afghani". (1839-1897). Afghani believeci that "Muslim lands had lapsed into ignorance and heip1essless to becorne the prey of Western aggression." Once

M u s h belief is that Muhammad was sent not oniy for the individual

believer to find salvation, but to Institute a virtuous society.

It foiiowed that there were uncertain ways of acting in society which were in conformity with the Prophet's message and the wiii of God, certain others were not. But as the circumstances changecl, SOCfety and its rulers inevitably found themsehres faced with problems not foreseen in the prophedc message, and acting in ways which might even appear to contradict it.115

The issue was then, findhg a way for Muslim society to

accommodate itself to the m e aad original precepts of the faith

whüe accepting that the same society had evolved into another forrn.

'AWuh was not opposed to the essence of this evolution, but

maintaineci that with increasing and deeply penetrating

westernization, social changes and developments were not only

inevitable, but were quite possibly beneRciaL He was weli-aware,

however, of the possible danger this may have posed: "the division of

society into two spheres without a real iink- a sphere ... in which the

laws and moral principals of IsIam rules, and another ... in which

principles derived by human mason from considerations of worldly

utflity held sway;"ll6 the former, ever-decreasing, and the latter,

freed from foreign domination and when Islam had reformeci to present-day conditions, Muslim peoples themeives couid dictate th& future affairs. His aitus of politid revolution as an instant meam of change, a teconciliation of philosophical rslam and modern scient& thought, and the beiief that Islam (under a pan-isiamic umbrelia of a Shi'a-Sunni union) was capable of adapting to "the now", are indications of his teligious tolerance and practical idedim. Charies C. Adams, * - London: Oxford University Press, 1933, 13-15. See N i e Keddie, lamal ad-Din "al- Afnhani-. Berkeley University of California Press, 1972, 81-128. 115~ourani, 136. %id.

whose very nature and history is antithetical to anything but a religious tradition. Aithough 'Abduh held great admitatiun for

European achievernents- having spent much tirne there, b o t . as an

exile and as a student of law in France-, he did not beüeve that ail

manners of law and custom could tx transplanteci to Egyptlan soiL

There was, In fact, a danger of exacerbating the situation which was

already misunderstood as it existed outside of its natural context.

The modernizing influences of Europe, though not natural outgrowths

of the Egyptian experience, had great potential in Egypt. When

mismanageci, however, the deleterious effets of foreign persuasion

could create a situation of greater chaos.

A primary example was the existing system of education in

E g y p t 'Abduh saw the country as operating under two separate

academic mentalities and set hstitutions that held no real

relatfonship to one another. The first, the oldest system of leanifng,

was the reiigious schook 'Abduh felt that they "suffered fiom

stagnation and slavish Imitation, the characteristic of traditional

I ~ I a m . ~ l l 7 Th& exclusive concentration on teaching the reiigious

sciences led to the chronic negIect of the barder sciences and

understanding the terms and impact of modernity. The second

system was the more modem; instruction based on a European mode1

in the foreign missions and governent amdemies. 'Abduh

maintaineci that the mission schools estrangeci Egyptian students

from th& own religion, culture, and native mentaiity, and implanted

a dependency on foreign understanding. The govement schools

"had the vices of both", being the imitations of the foreign schools,

but with no reiigious instruction, and therefore "no sociai or political

morality."ll8 The critical issue behind thls clash was the cause of

Egyptls social, and more specificaliy spiritual, division. Each system

produced its own separate educated class, each with its own spirit;

"one was the traditional Isiamic spirit, resisting aU change; the other,

the spirit of the younger generation, accepting aii change and ali the

ideas of modem EuropeYlg For 'AWuh, this represented the

ultimate division; not only "the absence of a common basis ... (but

a b ) the danger that the moral ôases of society would always be

destroyed by the restless spirit of indMdualism."l2o If aiiowed to

continue, and if left in the hands of men who did not fully

understand the danger of this growing dichotomy, the destructive

force of an inteliectually divided nation could sacrifice the unity of

Egypt. 'Abduh's purpose, therefore, in bridging this gulf in society

involveci a two-fold task: first, a reevaluation and expression of the

m e essence of Islam; second, "a consideration of its implications for

modern sodety,"l21 the former ôeing the more significant. in hfs

own words, 'Abduh outlined the importance:

First, to iiberate thought from the shackies of taqffd, and understand religion as it was understood by the elders of the community before dissension appeared; to return, in the acquisition of reiigious knowledge, to its fmt sources, and to weigh them in the scales of human reason... and to prove that, seen in tbis iight, reiigion must be cowted a friend to science, pushing man to

investigate the secrets of adstence, summoning hirn to respect established truths, and to &pend on them in his moral Me and conduct.122

He wanted Muslims to believe that when understood in its purest

form, Islam containeci the mechanisms to explore rational behavior

and thought, with a moral code that could act as the ultirnate guide

for modem Me. This was not to say that he believed that the ideals

of modernism and progress were pre-approved by Islam. On the

contrary, "Islam, as he conceived it,.. would enable Muslims to

àistinguish what was good ftom what was bad among ail the

suggested directions of change." 123

Yet the reforms would have to be irnplemented at every level

of Society starting with &-Azhar and the 'ulama'. In addition to

being the highest and oldest seat of traditional blamic leaniing, ai-

Azhar was also responsible for producing the majority of the

country's teachers and judges. They were the religious, and

therefore the legal, authorities of Egypt, It only made sense that,

"the starting point of all awakening was al-Azhar. "Reforming it,"

wrote 'Abduh, "arnounts to reforming the Muslim world."'124 Such a

reformation could only take place through an intense pmess of

sociai re-education; judges and reiigious authorities, for instance,

would need to be reeducated in order to re-ïnterpret the law to

enable them to discm what was acceptable in Ewopean morality so

as to assimilate it into Egyptls expanding mental culture.i2s This was

the nation's path towards restoration. Through a period of national

education, 'Abduh beiieved that every social and poiiticai iil could

successfiilly be addressed. The resultrilg communai understanding of

Egypt's circumstance would allow the country to grow in the strength

of its unity.126

Aithough the focus of 'AWuh's reformist phiiosophy was not

education, or wen spledfically women's educational rights, he did

outline it as a primary means of sodal change. He advocated the

necessity of training girls, "no Iess than of boys" and reforming the

social conditions affecting Muslim wornen.lz7 Despite the fact that he

did not make direct overtures for the emancipation of women, he did

emphaticaliy express concern at their iii-treatment and subjugadon

at the hands of men. His particuk concems were polygarny and

"other tzarmful mial customs (which) have affected unfavorably the

social and moral status of women... It is essential that these

conditions be corrected ... by improved opportunides for

educatfon."lzg It is important to note that he made these statements

as Mufti (supreme legal authority) of Egypt, and without the support

of the traditional-minded 'ulama'. It may not seem a radical

departure fmm the patriarchai status quo. However, the recognition

and a,xpression of a need for a social overhaui regarding the

126?t seems to be reiterated tùmughout disirassions of 'AWuh's philomphy that his strong convictions for national anity- "not only the place they Lved in, but the locus of thei. pubiïc rights and duties, the object of their affection and prideW- between Muslims and non-Mttslims, and thme of differing political ideologies, was at the center of his nationafist Ieanings. His sense of importance of unity influenceci bis views of IsIamic & o m We alsri see the emphasis he piaced in the use of reason- throngh reason we may understand the role of modem civilization in rslamic He. See farther, Ho&, 156-158, 127~dams, 2.30. m b i d .

treatment of women, c-g h m a man of such prestige, opened the

debate on a national and politicai levei for his opponents and

disciples to address.

The most prominent of 'Abduh's disciples, certainly the most

controversial, was Qiisim Amin (1865-1908). Educated in France and

trained as a lawyer, Amin widened the reformist debate to include a

greater focus on women's education. It was an education " based on

reason and independent judgment, postulated for men as weli as for

women, in order to bring about a better understanding of the true

Islamic precepts and to create a more viable society." 129 It was not,

in other words, education for its own sake, but for the greater good

of society. Such a concem was addresseci within the wider context of

social and reiigious deciine, as was discussed by 'Abduh. Amin

accepted that the Islamic community was in decline, but altered

course from the traditional explanadons as to the causes of the

descent Albert Hourani notes that Amin neither belteves the naturai

environment nor Islam itself is responsible for the disappearance of

'social virtues' and 'moral strength'. Islamic dediae is, in fact, a

result, not a cause of the demise of these merits. The true culprit is

ignorance.130 It is the ignorance, Amin f d s , of

the m e sciences from which alone can be derived the laws of human happiness. This Ignorance begins in the family. The relation of a man and a woman, of a mother and chiid, are the basis of society; the virtues which exist in the family wilI exist in the nation ... The work of women in sodety is to form the morais of the nation.131

It is here that the importance of not only education, but the

education of women came into play. "It fs impossible to raise

successful men, if they do not have mothers capable of preparing

them for success."l32 With statements such as these, Amin outlined

the progress of society as contingent upon the progress of women,

With such radical ideas inciting storms of controversy that

have yet to be resolved, Haddad points out the necessity of Amin's

eliciting the support of the male hierarchy. In order to do so, he

showed that the prirnary beneficiary of the hberation of women is

the man. Issues related to the status of women, therefore, became

more paiatable. Amin's views as to the degree of women's

educationai reform, however, may not seem to vary too greatly from

those of the patriarchal intellectmis he was trying to persuade.

True, Amin beiieved that the hem of the social problem was the

position of women, and that the only remedy was through their

education. He never suggested, however, that women should be as

highly educated as men, but only given an equal opportunity at the

primary stage of instruction. "He refuted the idea current at the time

that chastity would be endangered by education. 'That some people

use education for unworthy ends does not fus- theh being

deprived of it " Y 3 in fact, according to Hourani, Amin's suggestions

for women's education "are so modest as to seem tirnid."134 He

argued that they shouid at Ieast have elementmy schooiing In order

to manage th& households and to piay more effectively theh sociai

132Haddad, "Muslim World", 144.

f - I33~hmad, 48. 134~0urani, 165.

rolel3s in deheating the predse type of education a woman should

receive, Amin exposes his Europeanization. in addition to basic

reading and writing skills, as welî as reiigious education, women

should be schooled in the notions of the natural and moral sciences,

the "true sciences" of which none should be ignorant. This type of

knowledge, while it may have been prompted by the indigenous

motivations of the growing awareness of women's issues, "was also in

part an emulation of the Engiish ruhg ciass... There is no doubt in

his mind the high degree of civilization he ascribed to European

society; ... the same scientific min& that invented stem power and

electricity also advocated women's emancipation."l36 It appears that

Amin drew a direct correiatfon between dvilization and a society's

treatment of women.

For Egypt, then, to rise to the same degree of civilization, it

must implement radical change. ui describhg his views of this need

for change, Amin wrote

This is the disease which we must proceed to remedy; there is no medidne but that we teach Our children about western civilkation ... then we wiii know the value of it and reake that ft is impossible to reform what is around us if it is not founded on modern scientific knowledge ... This is what lads us to cite Ewopeans as an example and urge that they are emulated, and it is for this that we have undertaken to caii attention to European women. 137

135Ibid. On this, also see Ahmad, 47-50. 7

Y . 1%01e, 394-395. I 137~ad&d, "Muslim Women" ,143-144.

Juan Cole points out that Amin deheated four stages in the L

1 - evolution of women's status in mciety. Amin argued that

in primeval Weties, women were equal to men. After the establishment of the famty, women were reduced to slavery. When some progress toward CMUzation was made, they regained a few rights. Now, he States, mankind has a c W y attained a measure of civilization and consequently women are regainhg the& complete W o m . While Europe has reached stage 4, he says, Egypt is s a for the most part in stage 3.138

Again, Amin sees a clear relationship between a society's dvfllzadon

and its treatment of women.

Although the primary issues ardculated in Amin's two pro-

emancipatfon books, The Ilberadon of the Woman (1899) and The

New Woman ( 190 1 ) , which caused an irnmediate uproar and l

articulateci an insistence on education for women, the abolishment of

the veil acd women's sodal seclusion, and an opposition to polygamy

and divorce, many of these issues were not relevant to al l classes of

women In Egypt.140 It is a fwriier relnforcement of the bourgeois

exclusivity of the women's movement at the the. Amin make this

apparent when he outiines the economic concerns and benefits of

138cole, 394. See Bourani, 165-166. 1393. Muhammad Ahrned bas desc~l'bed the response to the pubiication of Tahrir ai Mar'ah as near earth-shatterhg; "religious institutions were shaken to the core, the educational ciasses were deepIy disturbed.. the khedive made it known he was dissatisfi ed... (and exen) the poets of the period joined in the generai uproararm Ahmed, J. Muhammad, The of * .

Nationalism. London: Word University Press, 1960,47. Iqole, 394-395. Workïng-ciass and peasant women, for instance, did not

t ' practice veiling and seclasion. However, such concerns on Amin's part, again, I hdp amibe the upper-dass stam of the wumen's movement in Egypt

educating women. Judith Gran has polnted out that the women who

rnanaged households in the new agrarian capitaiist class were faced

with new responsibilities. Amin describecl these responsibilities and

emphasized the fact that they requlred a new education for the

women who were undertaking them: constructing a budget,

overseeing servants, educating the moral and intellectual

development of the children. Cole describes one of Amin's major

points as that educated European women of the same class are

better housekeepers, have superior material domestic taste, and are

better able to m;udmlze their income than their uneducated EgypW

counterparts.141 What is more, Amin argues, "the practice of

maintainfng separate compartments in the house for separate sets of

servants, separate coaches, and so on, involves the useless

expenditure of a great deal of money." 142 Although Amin's argument

for women's education in this instance is very much a ciass-based

demand, he believes that many lower-income families could hnprove

theh situation financialiy if the women were educated to various

fields of work and bring in a second income.143 I t is an avante garde

advocation of open economîc activity for women.

This seemingly total overhaul towards westernization that

Amin advocated was not as comprehensive as it may initialiy appear,

and rnaintained only selective demands for women's emancipation.

On the issue of the veii, he oniy sought that women uncover the&

14lc01e, 397. 142Ibid. 143cole, 401. EVM al-Afghani, for as radical as his ideah were, espoused an educational doctrine for society's dite; a "speciai ciass whose function wouid be the education of the rest of the people, and another dass (to train) the

,f ,. jmpIe in marais." The inst~ctor and the disaplinanan would supply the nation with some of "the most important provisions of ïsiam." See Adams, 16.

faces, not the entire head scarf. On polygamy, although he calted for

restrictions in the practice, he allowed it under certain circumstances.

For ail matters, Amin allows for the maintenance of some degree of

the status quo. He proceeds much iike his mentor Muhammad

'Abduh with "a cautious definition of Islamic practice rather than

abandonhg it.. . @y so doingl he is appeahg to those who stiii accept

Islam; at every point he takes his stand on the Qur'an and Shari'a'

interpreted in the right way."l44 He has thus attempted to pacify the

whole of the hierarchy, male and religious, by showing that women's

education is beneficial to men, and by underlying his arguments with

Qur'anic injunctions.

Amùi concluded that ultimately a i i women should be educated

in order to grant them a basic right to work, especially if they should

be widowed or for other reasons need to support themselves.14s Al1

women, then, "if educated, couid make an active contribution to

society rather than king dependents and drain resources. The

unuseci capital represented by women should be put to work, and

women should be k e d of their financial dependence on men." 146

Ier~ourani, 166. He maintains, for instance, that there is nothhg in the Qr'an about seciusion except for the wives of Muhammad. With regard to polygamy he upholcis the Qu'anic verse, ' and if you fear you wiU not act equirably, then only one.' Ahmad, 4849. 145cok, 400. 146~~le , 401. Cole notes that Amin's "unabashedly capitalist rationale for women's education and emancipation (faiIs) to reckon with the reaiïties of Egypt's depeudency relationship with the core economies of the West" Endastrialization had not occurred m Egypt such as would demand an urban work force which rnight have drawn women into the labor market. It was ais0 the case thar British colonial policy refuseci govenunent subsidies for education, and restricted enrohent in government schools to those who could successfuiiy conaibute to the nation's economy. "AminVs hopes of educating - the women of Egypt were whoiiy unteaüstic in a situation where only a few thousand men m e receîving a modem educatioan (401).

ISLAMIC NATIONALISTS

Qiisim Amin's feminist proposais, related to the status of

women and to his radical philosophy for the future of Egypt, created

a response that extended fw beyond the issues of women's

emandpation and education. This explains the strong opposition he

received upon publication of his books.L47 Badran notes that his

discourse was perceived as more dangerous than women's feminist

writings, not as visible at the time, because of the extent and

potential influence of readership of a respected member of the

establishment. 148 Ahmad attributes the criticism and dissension in

consemative response to "the fear of the impact of his personality

and the mental attitude he brought into the social scene."l49 It was a

situation that Amin, more than any other, was implicitly aware of,

and even cautioned his readers as to the consequences and extreme

diRiculties of social change, and revolution. in the closing pages of

The New Woman, Amin writes:

There are those who say to you, puri@ your souls and you will reaiize yourselves. They urge you to serve yow people and country, We beiieve this to be only talk, For changing our ways and modes of behaviour we need more than preaching. We want definite ends and means, and we need to prepare the young for the new Me, No amount of talking across pulpits or orders from authorities can transform

147Eke.u Muhammad Aiï and successive regimes calleci for women's education W e outlinhg the benefîts of their heightened socïai partiapation. It se-, however, that Amin's condition that educationai reform be focused on the nacurai sciences and progressive foreign technologies was the point of contention. See Haddad, "Mnslim World", 145 and Philipp, 279. ~4~~ "Women, Islam and the Statel', 204-205. 149~hma6 5 1.

us, nor can magic or intercession h m above. To change we have to worklso

It was predseiy this notion of change from the heavy hand of

European influence that the leaders of the nationalist opposition

responded to. Women's emandpation, they argued, was just another

imported plot to bring about the demise of the Egyptian nation

through immoraiity and decadence.ls1 The primary opposition of

women's emancipation was issued from the intellectuals of the petite

bourgeoisie, and the reiigious authorides. The 'ulama' calied Amin a

heretk while arguing that the status quo regarding women's

educational ignorance w s based on a hadith report fiom the Prophet

Muhammad that women should not be taught to read or write.152

There was also criticism against women's liberation, with particular

reference to women's education, as king part of the 'missionary

consphcy'. The perceiveci objective of Christian missionary poiicy

was the destruction of Islam, "using its own people to uproot it from

withW"'s3 Haddad maintaias that Musiim women in Egypt were the

target of missionaries and were the focus of a definitive strategy

aimeci at contributing to the degradation of society. in terms of

women's missionary education she quotes Muhammad Qutb: 'When

they 'educated' her, they taught her knowledge and mastery of

150Ibid. 15Lphilipp, 279. 152~o~e , 393. Cole makes an interesting observation as to why Amin, father of t w ~ daughters, may have held such an interest in women's emanapation and the deveiopment of his ideas (coinadentaiiy or not) occurred during changes in his reiationships with women. Cole notes that Amin's f b t book, which defendeci naditionai Egyptian values, was pubiished prior to his marriage (his wife had been raised by an Engiish nanny, as were his chiidren) and that his shift of opinion dweioped swifdy thereafter. S e Cole, 394. =53~addad, "MusIim Worldn, 154.

corruption, a corruption based on 'principles', educational principles

at mes, psychologicai, sociological or intellectrial at O ther times ... put] at all dmes principles of corruption.'ls4 She points out that

Etienne Lutme is cited as proof of missionary intent to use Muslirn

women to undermine the 'pillarsl of Islam. He is reported to have

said of the parochial schools run by nuns, "the education of girls in

this marner is the only way to eradicate Islam by the hand of its

own peopie."lss Haddad quotes another weii-known missionary,

Samuel Zwemer, who reportedly stated that, "we have learned that

there are other means besides direct attack on Islam-.. We must

search for the crack in the wall and place the rifle. We know the

m c k is in the heart of the women of Islam. It is the women who

fashion the children of the MusUms."1~6

Despite these attacks on Amin which amounted to criticism of

the education of women, it was primarily the issues of veiling and

seclusion that his adversaries objected to; again, practices that were

confined to women of the upper-class- an estirnateci ten percent of

the population in 1899.257 One of Amin's more reactionary

opponents was Mustafa Kamil (1 874-1908), the nationalist leader

whose primary goal was the immediate evacuation of the British

1 5 4 E k W 4 155. i5%bid. 156~addad, 155-156. She States that proof is later ated to demonstrate the success of wstern and missionary education in the actions of Hoda Sha'arawi and Ceza Nabrawi, two founders of the Egyptian Feminist Union (1923), and th& ciramatic removal of their veils. Both women had extensive contact with the West and had received a French education. The success of foreign-owned women's magazines (as discused in chapter one) was also ated as proof; literary, educated women undermining the Egyptian core. ~ S ~ C O I ~ , 393.

presence in Egypt.1sa The soîalIeed 'counter-nationalism' that Kamii

espoused was p M y "a reaction against foreign domination or the

threat thereof rather than a concern with the poiitical and social

structure of the sodety itself."lsg Egyptian independence was,

therefore, the most pressing concern, more so than any moves for

social change or reorganization. Such 'innovation' was, for Kamii, too

representative of foreign intervention with the ultimate purpose

k i n g the corruption and downfall of Egyptian society. The rationale

behind women's emancipation f a into the same category, and Kamil

was opposed to it. An example he used to point out that women's

emancipation was a foreign plot was the non-Egyptian origins of the

founders of women's magazines. His preoccupation with national

independence made him "regard social change as secondary in

importance and possible only as a consequence of independence. As

long as this goal was not obtained socid change was eyed

suspiciously as a means to divide sodety and to weaken its moral

On the issue of education, Kamil's sentiments were better

enundateci by his perhaps more vocal coiieague Muhammad Talat

Harb (1867-1 8%). Harb, whose primary concern was Egypt's

economic independence, joined forces with Kamil in his overail

opposition to women's emandpation.l61 He too maintainecl that

women's emancipation was a foreign plot designed to weaken, if not

158~hiIipp, 279. 15g~hilip, 279-280. 16%iIïpp, 282.

- - 16kole, 402. Like Kamil, Barb had a French education in law. His involvement in Egypt's economic affairs proved formative when he Iater became an important financier and founded the country's first bank, Bank Misr.

destroy, the social unity of Egypt. It was a Western import that, like

aii things that smacked of Western influence, should be eradicated

fiom the system in order for the country to rebuild itself. Harb

severely critidzed Amin for his emulation of European civlllzation, its

presumed glories of modernity, and he wrote two books rehting

Amin's publication of Tahrir al - Mar 3 . His primary criticisms were

of Amin's demands for the abolishment of seclusion and velling,

w hich Harb staunchly defended. Moreover, he rnaintained that the

only reason Amin's books caused such an outrage was because Amin

cited Qur'anic injunctions to support his ciaims. Harb insisteci,

however, that Amin's assertions were misguideci and that the true

Islam explicitly States that seclusion and veiiing should be

practiced.162 Cole points out, however, that Harb in a "reveaiing

passage ... unwittingly shows the extent to which his conviction of the

need for seclusion and veiling is based on social as well as reiigious

factors."l63 Harb maintainecl that seclusion and veiling could only be

abolished if the Qur'an were replaced with another holy book and the

hadith were proven false. He iater stated that even this scenario

would uphold the true path of IsIam on the bases of manner and

etiquette (if nothing else) even if religion were not in the

equation. 164

The advocacy of women's education seems to be the issue that

received the least amount of opposition. Both Kamil and Harb were

162~ole, 402-403. Cole desaibes how Harb, in an attempt to deflate Amin's growing notoriety, pointed out that Amin's position "was neither original nor unprecedented regardhg bis vievus mwards womenrs emaucïpation- He rnakes clear the fact that Marqus Fahmi, a Coptic lawyer, was publiciy advocating women's reforms as early as 1894- '63cole, 402. 16'kole, 403.

in agreement with Amin for more and better education for women. +

< _ It was a shared belief between the reformer and nationalist at the

tum-of-the-century that "education ... frequently seemed to be the

magic cure for the various social, economic, and political ilis of

society.l'l6s Harb, however, was afraid that highe. education might

result in the possibiiity of women circulating more visibly in society.

Women's education, therefore, came with two conditions. The Rrst

was that education take place without altering the sacreci values of

modesty that are held within the practices of veiling and seclusion.

The second was that the education be severely iimited to what is

necessary to maintain a household and raise children.166 Neither

seclusion nor veiiing need be abolished for women to be successfully

educated, he argued, especially since a woman's tacher could be

anyone in whose presence she could lawfuUy appear.167 Again, the

essence of the opposition was not to education itself, but to what it

entailecl. Harb urged women to assume greater roles as teachers and

administrators in Muslim girls' schools, despite the fact that he

recognized that there were not enough educated Egyptian women to

fili such postions. Rather than bring foreign instructors h m non-

Muslim countries, which would contradict his fiercely nationdistic

Islamic tendendes, Harb advocated importing Muslim women from

O ther Islamic couritries to teach Egyptian girls. 168

Despite the educational endeavors on the part of reformers,

Harbrs harshest commentary was reserved for Amin himself and for

what he belleved was Amin's ignorance of Egyptws saciai condition.

Harb criticized Amin for his emulation of European civiiization and

its wonders of modernity, and maintaineci that despite Amin's

recognition as a reformer of M u s h women, the reforms, in fact,

faiied. He asserted that "manneri; were deteriorating, licentiousness

was on the rise, wine drinking was spreading, indebtedness had

become cornmonplace, squandering money was more common, and

educational achievernents were decllning."169 Such deterioration was

clearly the result of European interference.

Juan Cole makes an interesting observation as to the basic

différences between who he refers to as "upper rniddle class

reformers iike Amin, and lower middle class ioteliectuals iike Harb."

With respect to theh sentiments towards European influence, Cole

notes that initially, both men rejected British rule in Egypt. As Amin

grew older, however, he came to believe that European rule in Egypt

was more beneficiai to his own dass than the previous rule of the

khedives. Harb, iikewise, reflected the sentiments of his class

background with criticism towards colonial rule which did litde to

improve the circumstance of the Egyptian poor and working classes.

In their respective stances towards European intervention, each

expressed his views as a manifestation of his own social condition.170

WOMEN ACTMSTS

Men's emergent feminism is said to have risen out of the

aftermath of Amin's publications. It was, after ail, men with their

audible voices in public forums that brought women's concems to the

national arena It was men who most strongly impressed upon

society the importance of educating women to raise th& own status

and consequently that of th& children and the greater Egyptian

Society."' The women invoived in the proces, however, must be

credited with fint the se& of ferninist discourse in Egypt.

Women's journals and salons, and early publications of poetry

expressing nascent feminist ideology have already been discussed.

The efforts of individual women and the examples of their lives,

howwer, must be recognized and named.

Public feminist activism was legftimlzed after Egypt's

independence in 1922 with the establishment of the Egyptian

Feminist Union the foilowing year. The first generation of women

activists were, therefore, raised during the final decades of the

harem legacy before the tum-of-the-century. "By that time, changes

in the weryday lives of upper and middleclass women were

marked. Some constraints of the harem system had lessened, yet

basic control over women remaineci find"'72 It was a time when

women's feminist wriüng and concerns became more visible, due in

large part to the discourse initiatecl by 'Abduh and Amin. They were

concems that demandeci response and public participation by the

- 'subjects' at the heart of the controversy. The women, like the men 1-1 associatecl with the movernent, represented the same kind of

divergent opinions as to the extent and manner that women's

feminism should embrace. Conservative voices, as well as those who

were l e s so, k a m e prominent representatives of their respective

groups. Mal& Hifni Nasif (1886-19 l8), known by her pen m e

'Bahithat al-ûadiyah ('Searcher in the Desert'), whose views were

slightly more conservative, was probably the most outspoken writer

on the subject of women's emancipation.173 Her articles were fmt

pu blis hed in the nationalist party paper, ai- Jarida, that expressecl the

conservative views with which she tended to more closely associate.

Thomas Philipp notes that her choices of issues were ciearly

influenced by the writings of Qêsim Amin. For instance, she bitterly

critidzed polygamy (baseci, no doubt, on her personal experience of

unwittingly entering into a polygamous rnarriage with a man who

already had a wife and chiid).174 She favored a gradua1 reduction of

gender segregadon and demanded that women be ailowed to enter

rnosques and sermons- providing that they enter through separate

doors from the men, and arrive and leave eariier.175 Althougb she

called for women's right to public space, she never advocated the&

unveiling.176 Margot Bada notes that tbis was a "tactical move"

and that Nasif "actually opposed the unveiling of the face that male

ferninists advocated ... [she wanted instead for] women to gain more

173~hilipp, 283. 174Badra11, Margot. W t s . 1-d Nation, 54,

- - 175Baron, 184.

176Badra.n. "Competing Agenda", 205.

education and rec-laim public space before they unveiled.1" Nasif's

concerns for the necessity of women's education unde~scored their

soclai advancement. The educational and empfoyment demands that

she sent to the Egyptian National Congress in 19 1 1 were, in fact, the

cornerstones of her feminist goals.178 She even acknowledged the

social strides that European women had gahed through education,

but cautioned against 'bhd imitation' of Western practices; an

admonishment whfch kept her in acceptable standing with

nationaiists such as Mustafa Kamil who criticized the 'aping' of

Western ways. Egyptian women, she wrote, "must And their own

national mode of expression and Musiims must rernain me to th&

religion"179 The discretion of her demands, not desiring to act too

precipitously in her visions of Egyptian reform, "was essential to

some of those demands being granted."Lm That it was perhaps a

matter of poiitical expeidiency in deferring to men as the lawmakers

of social poky is best exemplified in her final demand at the 191 1

congressional meeting. Her Arst nine points, five of which are

detücated to educational r&orms for women, include maintalnùlg

Egypt's welfare and refushg to adopt foreign customs or practices

The tenth and final point designates men to see that the demands are

carried outPl

L771bid Badran a h points out that unveiling for progressive men had crucial symbotic valne, whiIe for women it was more a matter of practicality that they themselves muid have to initiate, "., with the attendant risks of taunts and assauits on di& reputations," (205-2W). See also Cole, 401-402. 178~adran, "Origins of Feniinism in EgypC, 163 179gadran, &&&&&Islam and Natiqg 54. 18oLeila Ahmed, 120-

r I' 181Ibid. Baron notes that Nasif submitted h& '10 Pointsr to the congress, but L was forced to have a male proxy deüver the speech on her behalf. "That she

Nabawiyyah Musa, a contemporary of M a h k Hifni Nasifs, was

another middle-class "first generation activist." Although of a

siightiy more modest background than Malak, it was a suffident

enough humüity to direct her sensitivities to the piîght of the poorer

women in Egyptian society. (Until Uiis time, the mainstream, and

certainly more vocal directives of the women's movement concemed

those in societyts upper strata). It was these women, Musa felt, who

were forced to work for low wages at servtle jobs where they were

often sexually and economically expioited. Like Malak, she

maintaineci that through education and more appropriate work

opportunities for women, exploitation could be avoided and women

could begin to define their own means of iiberation.182 Musa's

concems also echoed those of her coueague, and both operated their

consciousness-raising activities through publications and public

lecturIng.183 Because of their own middle-class status, they were

able to secure speciaI classes, composed prlmarily of upper-class

women, and instnict women at the Egyptian University. Badran

notes that these classes were forced to stop, however, when the

university cut its funding. The money that was saved was used to

send three men to study abroad.184

did not read this oft-cited speech herseIf ïliusaates the reality of segregation in 1911 and places her demands in a difkrent light," 1 83. 182Badran, "ûrigins of Femmism m Egyptn, 162. la3unIike Malak, however, was Musa's removai of the veil in 1909. It was not a public went and she removed ody the face scarf. By so doing, howver, she became an exception among Mu- feminists- and certainly Musiim women who continued to cover tlieir faces mtii the 1920s- who acceded to wearïng the veii "to faalitate their forays into public space.. . It is significant, however, that when Nabawiyyah Musa unveiled, she had neither father nor a husbmd ... to conml her life." Ba- 48. 184Badran, "Cornpethg Agenda", 205. Nabawiyyah Musa aheady had experience with state funding cuts for woments educational activities. She was

Both Nabawiyyah Musa and Malak HLhil Nasif were products of

the demands each espoused for women8s emancipadon. They had

both experienced schooling thmugh the secondary level and had

been able to work in social capaddes as educators and lecturers.

Fducation and labor were simple enough demands, the advantages of

which these activists believed "were the cornerstones of their

f m t goals for women."las

In su-, most earIy Egyptian feminists prior to 1923, as

Baron notes, "wrote rnainly as modernists or Islamists, although the

line between the two positions seemed somewhat blurred at tintes.

Both groups argued within the context of Islam, with the intention of

revitaiizing and strengthening religion. '1% They seemed to ciiffer

primariiy on issues they chose to ernphasize rather than the

substance of the issues themselves, For instance, while modernists

"sought expansion in the realrn of education and reform in marriage

and divorce laws. .. Islamists ... sought enforcement of lslamic iaws

uicluding women's right to education, but encouraged women to

learn the law to know their rfghts, not to modifL thern."la7 It was

the closeness of their ideological position on the necessity of

addressing women's, therefore society's, educationai rights that

bmught the groups to cornmon ground.

- - - -- -

the first and last Egyptiaa woman (untii after independence) to p a s the secondary school examination- (she bad aiready graduateci, as had Malak, from the Saniyya Teacfier's School in 1905); "colonial authorities with their policy of training men for practical administration were not prepared to subsidize women's secondary education," and the program for fundiag women's secondary education was haited, Badran, 205. 18%adran, "Origins of Feminism in Egypt", 162. 186Baron, 111. 187Ibid.

The furor ralsed over the broader significance of women's :

emancipation seems to have overshadowed any positive elements

that may have been generatd by women's education alone. Perhaps

it was because it was a concem that received M e opposition.

Critidsm and social dichotomiziing mer interpretive tenets of Islam

(seclusion and veillng) , primariiy by the nationalkt opposition,

prevaiied over an issue that ali agreed upon in principle but were

l es moved to change. It was not as caustic, it did not grab

immediate attention as a religious prerogative- women were veiled

and secluded and they were not being educated at acceptable levels.

That the rigidity of v&g and seclusion might ease was

unacceptable to nationalis ts such as Mustafa Kamii, as such liberation

was thought to be reflective of foreign control. That the rigidity of

I women's educational opportunities did not change- or changed

visibly iittie untii pro-active women, such as Malak Hifni Nasif and

Nabawiyyah Musa, aggressively sought after women's educational

opportunities- is perhaps an indication of the mai efforts and

concerns on the part of the male hierarchy of the necessity of

reevaluating the status quo; even for issues (women's education) that

are IslarnicaiIy ordaineci,

CONCLUSION

Within this setting, the ideologies of the protagonisrs were

grantecl but iimited time to cultivate themdves or to be

disseminated as developed puosophies (recall Cytiii Black's criterion

for developmental success). They seemed to route in their own

boundarfes, reinforcing the& beliefs by positing themselves against

the other. The agendas of each, the protefeminists, the nationahts,

and the Islamic refomists, were precariously intemoven on the

subject of women's education. Thein was not a reiationship of

aggression or of cornpetition, and only appeared to vie for pubk

support on an inteilectual level. The conservative response of

outrage to the pubiicadon of Wim Amin's books, for instance, was

actual and tangible, but there was no formulateci movement to take

arms for an active respnse against what Amin espoused in women's

iiberation. Again, it was ideologicai in content, realized in the form of

subjective academic debate and editorial battery. The allowance for

this type of attention is indicame of the exclusivity of its content

The socfal eiite had the lumuy of such tbought and it was for their

sakes that any such discussion was initlally generated- particularly

in the upper-class strata of the early women's movement.

The move from ideology to actuality occurred with the

Egyptian revolution of 1919. With speciflc reference to the women's

movement, it is significant that it played no part in nationaiist or

Islamic reformist politfcs prior to this date. That the wornen's -

I , movement did not advocate its position from a political basis perhaps

added a certain amount of crdibility and tolerance to the cause. The

movement's primary concerns were of educational avaiiability and

access to welfare. The nationairst-reformist Ahmed Lutfi al-Sayyid

outbed this fact (in an address of praise for Egyptian women who,

uniike their Western counterparts, did not demand the franchise) by

writing, "Our women, Goci bless them, do not put up such demands,

which would disturb the public peace... They only demand education

and instmction."~fJ8 As CMstine Sproul notes, although this seems to

be a conservative position for a progressive philosophy, "one must

re&e that the early supporters of women's iiberation needed some

moderation to counterbalance and survive the meme conservatism

opposing that social movemen t" 189

When, in 1919, women rose in protest against British

occupation, they did so as Egyptians, not as women with a singularly

feminist agenda. The nationaiism and frenzy of modernism and

reform of the earlier part of the century quiddy changed to

revolution. Prior to 1919 the three groups converged on an

ideological level with regards to women's issues, each holding very

difkrent notions as to how to deai with the a i y feminist concerns.

The reality of the rebeilion brought th& relationship to a tangible

center in a common desire for independence. Women emerged from

their seclusion and took to the stteets in active demonstrations,

strikes, and boycotts against the British. Their actions were received

with overwhelming support h m the male estabiishment. The

entrance of women into the public arena and the force of their

r88phiüpp, 287. Qgoted h m Ahmad Lutfî ai-Sayyid, &Mun- 81-82. LS%proul, Christine. The AIserican CoiIae for GirICai ro . ï&y& AM Arbor: University ~crofilms International, I983,22.

plidcal iovolvement would never have previously sanctioned.

Sproul notes again, "husbands, who in normai timg would not have

tolmted their wfves' public actMty, now appmved of women's ... active protests. Thus, the radical shock of a nationaiist uprising

launched harem ladies into public Me and irlso launched theIr

emandpation movement" ,190 Because women's protest was viewed

as an act of national loyalty, it was generaity condoned.

With the success of the revolution, and Egyptls declaration of

independence in 1922, women gained legitimacy in launching the

directives of the womenls movement. This was reaiized in 1923 with

the establishment of the Egyptian Feminist Union by Hoda Sha'arawi,

an eady feminist pioneer. The Union, which soon became the leading

women's organization in Egypt, put fort. a demiled agenda of

wornen's demands. Whiîe actively campaigning for impmved social

welfare programs, donating money to the P r , and demanding new

regdations for rnarriage and divorce laws, the Union's primary

interest, outihed in the first h m articles of its constitution, was the

education of women: "[toj raIse women's intektual and moral ievd

so that &y m y r&e th& politicai and social equaiity with men ... and demand k access to schools of Mgher education for aU girls

who wish to educate themselves." 191

The latter demand was partWly granteci in 1924 when q u a i

opportunity for education to boys and giris was included in the

Egyptian constitution. Women soon began to participate in study

missions abmd as only d e academTcs had done since Muhammad

AU. The first government secondary schooi for girls was estabiished

in 1925, and in 1929 women were admitted to the University of

Cairo. (a1-Azha.r did not ailow women students untii 1965) .192

Although girls' and women's education began to rise in popuhrity,

(See Appendix, Table ii)) flourishing particularly in foreign and

private schoolsl93, few wornen were entering the public domain of

the work force Some became active in sociai w e X m organizadons,

but women's education was viewed more as "a social and cultural

value for marriage."l94 The offidal estabiishment of the Egyptian

Feminist Union and the growing public acceptance of the women's

demands could not change cultural affiliations with the accepted

conventionai role of women in society. The notion of modernity and

the complexity of progressive thought in a culture entrenched in

tradition was not going to change because of a constitutional mandate

and the apparent musings of the social eiite. The public role of

women, perhaps beginning with their own desires to be educated

and a collective understanding of progress within a modem context,

would take time to be re;iiiited. Commenting on the need for primary

education for girls, the Director of the Americaa

Coiiege for Girls in Cairo in 1930 stated chat, "the public is not ready

for the economic liberîy of womeo. It will be another 25 years

before women will be in many professions In Egypt. We are pushing

192Ibid. 193~he earlier-mentioned popularity of foreign schools and the prestige attached to them did much to advance women's education prior CO and during the turn-of-tk-century and did so m e r after Egyptrs independence. Bo13 blamic and government schools began to vie for the status of the foreign . r

/ ! schools in an attempt to cultivate an EgyptiaDSducated populous. 1941bid.,70.

for vocational training for boys, of course, as an economic

necessity." 195

Despite the fact that the tables indicate a ciramatic increase in

vocational training for giris Ln a shorter time-span than the Director

of the girlis' school predicted, Christine Sproul notes that as late as

1974 women still complained that "despite legislation for social

change, traditional attitudes and prejudices perpetuate the idea that

women are uiferior ... only a well-planned educational process can

bring about those legislative changes."i96 It is an indication that

dwelopment, in this case a modernization of rdgious and social

noms, is in constant motion, receding and progressing as people and

circumstances dictate. It can not be forced. To change, or effect to

question, the mentality of a Muslun society that had corne to accept

the position of women as Isiamicaiiy ordained was the task of

visionaries. That men and women, who held vastly different agendas

as to how to employ Egyptrs version of rnodernism, were able to

unite in silent and unwitting collaboration on the social necessity of

women's education, proved to be a decisive piatform from which the

womenrs movement was able to embark

L95~oodsmall, Ruth Frances. S. New York: Round Table Press, Inc., 1936, p, 178. 196~prouI, 71. Woted from Sumaya Fahmy's "The Role of Women in Modern Egypt" in m t i o n -ed. Y& Saleh el-Din Kotb. Cairo: Ain Shams University Press, 1974, pps. 73-79.

APPENDICES

Table 11

Re-World War I Egyptian Women's Magazines

Year Magazine Founded

Religious Background

ai-Fatah

Anis ai-jalis

al-Marah fil' Islam

al-Marah

Shajarat addurr

az-Zahra

as-Sa'ada

Majaiiat as-sayyidat wa-al-banat ai-' A'ila

Fatat ash-sharq

ai-Jins al-latif

Majaiiat tarqiyat ai-mar'a Murshid al-atfai

al-JamiIa

Fa tat an-nil

Hind Nawfal

Alexandra Aviernoh

Ibrahim Ramzi

Anisa 'Am AUab

Sa'adiya Sa'd ad-Din

Maryam Sa'd

Ru jina ' Awwad

R u a Autun

Esther Moyei

Labiba Hashim

Maiaka Sa'd

Fatima Rashid

Anjiiina Abu Shi'r

Fatima Tawfiq

Satah Miyiya

Syrian Christian

Synan Christian

?

Syrian

?

syrian

Syrian Christian

Syr ian Christian

Syrian Jewish

Syrian Christian

Syrian Christian

Egyptian Muslim

Egyptian Copt

Egyptian M u h n ?

Egyptian Jewish?

Table II2

Number of and enroiiment in public, private, and foreign schools in Egypt, 19 13-1944-45

Enrohent Enrollment Schools No. of No. of

Schools Boys Girls Total Schoois Boys Girls Totai

Elemen tary and Compuisory:

Kindergarten md Primary: *Private 615 52,358 13,735 66,093 400 56.978 31,353 88,33 1 *Public 94 11,810 2,168 13,978 216 48,319 11,620 59,939 'Foreign 302 21,615 19,896 41,511 ... 33,627 12,678 46,305

-

I Z~oderic Matthews and Matta Akrawi, Educ;thon . in . Arab Countries of the Near East (Washington D.C.: American Councii on Education, 19491, p. 34,

Table II- Continued

Enroiiment Enrollmen t Schools No.of No.of

Schools Boys Guis Total Schools Boys Giris Total

Vocational, Speciai and Teacher Training:

Higher SchooIs:

Religious: p m a r v , Secondary , Higher:

*Private *Public "Foreign

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