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By
Sharon Otterman
Soad Saleh, one of
the world’s leading female scholars of Islam, fields requests
for religious advice each week from callers across the Arab
world. Seated at a gilded table on the set of her Egyptian satellite
TV show, Women’s Fatwa, Saleh provides religious
rulings on a wide range of subjects. How many months can a man
be away from his wife if he is working in another country? Under
what conditions is polygamy acceptable? How can a financial
dispute between sisters be settled?
During one episode
in late March, a young Egyptian woman named May called in. Six
months ago, when she married her husband, he promised she could
continue working as an engineer. Now he is insisting she stay
at home. He has even locked her in the house while he is at
work to prevent her from leaving. She doesn’t want a divorce,
because she fears people will blame her. What should she do?
Saleh paused briefly,
looking traditional but stylish in her periwinkle hijab, or
headscarf, and simple rimless eyeglasses. “You probably
agreed to marry this man because he is committed to his house
and responsibilities,” she said.
“Yes,”
May said.
“Being committed,
according to Islam, does not mean you pray in the mosque and
then oppress your wife at home. Being committed means that you
follow Allah’s rules in managing your relations with people,”
Saleh said. But she does not urge May to leave her husband,
instead urging her to be patient. “You have to wait until
you deliver your children,” she said, “and then,
God willing, you will get busy raising your babies.”
Saleh and her call-in
show are part of a growing phenomenon on Arab satellite television
and within Islam itself—the virtual mosque for women.
Along with Saleh, an increasingly diverse group of preachers
and Islamic scholars focusing on women’s issues are taking
to the airwaves. The new sheikhas include fashionable
former actresses and singers who have quit their old careers
and now host programs that promote Islam. They also include
other formally trained religious scholars like soft-spoken Abla
Al Kahlawy, Saleh’s colleague at Al Azhar, who is known
for her discussions of emotions and romance.
On the region’s
first Islamic satellite channel, Iqra, launched in 1998 by Jeddah-based
Arabic Television and Radio (ART), female preacher Neveen El
Guindy interacts with callers on her show Kadaya Al Maraa
(Women’s Issues). Hostess Doa’a Amer elaborates
on the rights of women in Islam on Magalet Al Maraa
(Women’s Magazine). Egypt’s secular Dream TV frequently
invites Al Kahlawy to appear on one of its religous shows becuase,
says Amr Khafagah, the station’s programming director,
she has become a star, able to attract audiences. And Saudi
billionaire Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal’s new Islamic satellite
channel, Al Resalah, which debuted March 1, has four programs
hosted by women. These shows are attracting more viewers than
the rest of the station’s offerings combined, in part
because 60 percent of the station’s viewers are female,
said Ahmed Abu Haiba, head of Al Resalah ’s programming
in Egypt.
The growth of women’s
programming is part of the exponential growth of Islamic religious
programming in the Arab world. On Iqra Channel, the main draw
has long been Muslim television preacher Amr Khaled, a 38-year-old
former accountant whose preaching has inspired thousands of
young women to take the veil. (See Lindsay Wise's article on
Amr Khaled and Youssef Al Qaradawi
in this issue). Al Huda (The Right Path) is a new English-language
Islamic station targeting Western audiences. Like most of the
religious channels, including Iqra and Al Resalah , Al Huda
is funded by Saudi investors.
Mainstream satellite
broadcasters are taking their cue from the popularity of such
programs on Islamic TV stations. Leading secular channels MBC,
Future TV and Dubai TV have all added regular series about Islam
to their schedules in the last few years, to great success.
Variety reported in April that MBC’s show about
Islam, “Yalla Ya Shabab” (Hey Kids!) was
one of this season’s top regional hits.
Stations
go into women’s religious broadcasting for different reasons.Dream,
for example is motivated by commercial interests, and a desire
to meet the rising demand for religious shows in the increasingly
religious Middle East. “It’s a social trend, not
a religious trend. It’s something like a mania, with fans
and stars,” said Dream TV’s Khafaga. “There’s
no difference between the behavior of the fans of Abla Al Khalawy
and Amr Khaled and the fans of Amr Diab,” he said,comparing
the two preachers to Egypt’s leading pop singers.“Just
like it’s good for some people to say they were at a party
with Amr Diab, they want to go to a lecture with Amr Khaled
or Abla Al Khalawy.”
Soad Saleh’s
show, which is aired on an Egyptian government-owned satellite
station, demonstrates Al Azhar’s desire to compete with
these new voices in the field of women’s religious programming.
As the highest-ranking woman at Al Azhar, the world’s
preeminent seat of Sunni Islamic learning, Saleh has appeared
on terrestrial Egyptian state-run television programs since
the early 1990s. Now, however, she is able to reach more viewers
on her satellite TV show, which began broadcasting in January.
The Case
of Soad Saleh: Islamic Feminism and Religious Authority
Saleh’s understanding
of Islam comes from a lifetime of study. Born in Cairo in 1946,
she was the second of nine children, and the oldest of the five
girls. Her mother did not work out of the home, but her father,
a religious scholar at Al Azhar, encouraged his daughters to
pursue higher education. When Al Azhar opened a women’s
faculty under former President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1962, Saleh’s
father urged her to attend.
By the time she earned
her master’s degree in 1972, Saleh was already arguing
that Islam contained more rights for women than many Muslim
women enjoy in practice. “God did not mean for men’s
dominance over women to be absolute,” she said in a recent
interview with TBS.
Saleh’s thesis
focused on the Islamic right of men to divorce their wives unilaterally,
a right that she argued often is interpreted too broadly. She
reasoned that men should only be able to divorce their wives
if “living together has become impossible.” She
also argued that a husband cannot divorce his wife while she
is menstruating, in part because sex is not permissible then,
limiting the possibility of reconciliation. Her fatwa,
or legal opinion on this matter, is now the official interpretation
of Al Azhar and is preached in hundreds of mosques in Egypt.
Saleh does not seek
to explain away Islamic rules that give men more rights than
women in divorce, inheritance, and other matters. Instead, she
seeks just treatment for women within the framework of these
laws, because Islam is a religion of justice. Her goal is not
to grant new rights to women, but rather, to restore to them
the rights they enjoyed in early Islam. She describes herself
as a feminist, though the term she uses is nashat islamiya,
or female Islamic activist. “Feminism is not a Western
term or idea. Islam called on women from the beginning to participate,”
she says.
Saleh has given some
advice that would make secular women’s rights activists
shudder. A light beating of a wife who betrays a faithful and
caring husband, she has argued, is preferable to divorce because
it preserves the sanctity of the family. Her advice to May—to
stick to an abusive marriage for the sake of future children—seems
to Western ears particularly harsh. Her brand of feminism is
separate from, and in some ways at odds with, feminism as generally
understood by secular activists. Saleh and other Islamic feminists
do not seek exact equality under the law for men and women,
because they believe God, as revealed in the Quran and other
holy texts, gave the sexes specific strengths and weaknesses.
But Saleh’s
program is also challenging long-standing Islamic orthodoxy—even
by the mere fact of its existence. The right of women to issue
fatwa, or Islamic legal opinions, remains controversial,
but that hasn’t stopped Saleh or others like her. “Whether
women can issue fatwas is a big issue all over the
Muslim world,” says Clark Lombardi, an expert on Islamic
law at the University of Washington. “I think the tide
is definitely with the women-can-do-it faction, but who knows
how long it will take for the war to be over.”
Saleh has tried to
gain official status as a female mufti in Egypt, applying to
Egypt’s Grand Mufti to make her the nation’s deputy
mufti for women’s affairs in the nation’s highest
religious council the Dar al-Ifta. Eight years after
she submitted her request, she has still not heard back. Grand
Mufti Ali Gomaa still questions women’s readiness for
the role. “Today, there is not even one female sheikha
to take information from,” he said in Egyptian newspaper
Al Masry Al Youm April 8.
But Saleh argues
that while it is extremely difficult for a woman to gain the
experience needed to issue fatwas, it is possible.
“She must know the Quran, the Sunna (traditions of the
Prophet Mohammed) and Islamic law, and mustn’t be fanatic
about a certain right. She must adopt a moderate attitude; Islam
calls for this,” she says. For this reason, Saleh believes
that only “one, maybe two” women in Egypt are qualified
to give Islamic rulings: herself and colleague Al Kahlawy. Former
actresses who have become veiled “can only discuss general
subjects, like the biography of the prophet, and ethics in Islam,”
Saleh asserts. Even Amr Khaled, who may well have more influence
over Egyptian society and religious practice today than any
Al Azhar trained scholar, “can only play a limited role,”
because of his lack of formal religious training, she argues.
But a glance at today’s
Islamic satellite programming raises the question of whether
the distinction Saleh holds to between preaching and fatwa
is shrinking. Religious advice from Amr Khaled, veiled former
pop stars, and other lay preachers may not hold any legal weight
in Islam, but if it is followed by thousands of people, does
it matter?
“Many Islamic
modernists who cannot be considered licensed scholars by any
classical standards have begun to opine on questions of Islamic
law in a way that their fans see as authoritative,” Lombardi
says. Increasingly, he says, authoritative advice in Islam is
“any opinion that a critical mass of Muslims think
is authoritative.”
The Media and its Messengers
Across town from
Al Azhar is the shining new office of the new satellite channel
Al Resalah. The channel’s Egyptian executive Ahmed Abu
Haiba, 37, says his channel offers an alternative vision for
women’s religious programming. The original producer of
Amr Khaled’s first television program, Abu Haiba is helping
to develop modern Islamic television’s sleek, contemporary
style. His shows on Al Resalah look as if they are set in trendy
urban cafes or upscale living rooms. He’s experimenting
with new, edgier camera techniques, such as panning the set
from a low angle, or framing the guests from a ceiling-mounted
lens.
Al Resalah is trying
to be the Arab world’s first Islamic variety channel.
Along with the traditional prayer calls and live shots from
Mecca that are fixtures on most Islamic stations, it also features
original cartoons for children with Islamic themes, game shows
which test Islamic knowledge, videos by modern Muslim rock stars
who sing about their love for their religion, and Islamic women’s
programming. On Al Resalah, a modern Islamic religious woman
is portrayed as observant, stylish, and welcome to work outside
of the home—so long as she remembers that her most important
role is with her family.
The channel is trying
to attract viewers with its message that Islam “can be
implemented in all aspects of life,” Abu Haiba told TBS.
“Islamic television doesn’t have to lecture. It
doesn’t have to be dull. It is not so difficult to implement
Islam in life—we are trying to deliver this message in
the simplest, brightest way possible. This is coming from our
point of view toward our lives,” he says. To this end,
Al Resalah’s shows feature fancy sets, high production
values and big-name stars.
Abu Haiba’s
other love is playwriting, and it is with a sense for the dramatic
that he has developed the station’s four shows hosted
by women. These programs, he says, “are the most important
programs we have, and the most popular.” They combine
religious discussion with the glamour of expensive sets and
a variety of formats, like many Western talk shows. Instead
of showing the static image of one woman offering fatwas
to anonymous callers, they seek to offer advice in a less formal,
chattier way.
Hor Al Dunia,
whose literal translation is “Celestial Virgins in the
Real World,” is one such program. It’s hosted by
Mona Abdel-Ghani, a beautiful former actress and singer who
quit her career in 1998 after her brother, who had always urged
her to become more religious, died suddenly of a heart attack.
“In the past, everything I did was meant to bring me more
fame and money; today, whatever I do is intended to please God,”
she told the Egypt’s state-run English-language paper,
Al Ahram Weekly, in 2002.
Abdel-Ghani opens
each show perched on a low white chair in what looks like the
central seating area of a chic duplex. The walls are painted
red, with chrome shelves and finishes; sculptured white vases
adorn the glass tables. Her stylish headscarf is always wrapped
a slightly different way and matches her outfit perfectly. On
one recent episode, fur pom-poms dangled from her hijab’s
edges.
Abdel Ghani first
welcomes to the set a celebrity, either male or female, to discuss
a social topic related to women’s lives. On one episode
in mid-March, former actor Mohammed al-Gindi, who now wears
all white and preaches about Islam, discussed the rules of divorce.
Abdel Ghani guides the conversation, nodding and agreeing, much
like a gracious host at a fancy dinner party. “We always
have to turn back to the Prophet Mohammed’s way in dealing
with problems,” she says sympathetically, responding to
al-Gindi’s advice to reconcile marriages if at all possible.
In the show’s second segment, regular people on the street
in Egypt, Syria, and Morocco are interviewed about their opinions
on divorce. Next, Abdel Ghani—who is going through her
own, well-publicized divorce at the moment—interviews
a journalist about his experience moderating a support group
for divorced woman. In the last segment of the show, a sheikh
comes out to resolve all the issues that have been raised from
an Islamic perspective. Sometimes, the Islamic expert is a young
sheikha, but usually it is a man.
Al Resalah ’s
other women’s shows follow related formats. On Talit
Al Amar (Moonrise) former actress Sabreen struggles to
keep control of a Crossfire-like panel discussion on a controversial
topic of interest to women, such as polygamy, domestic violence,
rape, or abortion. Islamic advice is pitted against comments
from psychologists and other laymen. In a second segment, Sabreen,
her face framed by her voluminous, sequined black abaya,
interviews a “role model” about his or her life
and views on Islam. To close each show, Sabreen hosts an inventor
who is participating in a 100,000 riel ($26,660) competition
sponsored by Prince Al Waleed for the best invention in the
Arab world. The segment does not relate to the rest of the show:
on one recent episode, an engineer in a plaid shirt showed off
a contraption that explodes kidney stones inside the body with
a gust of air.
Slightly more traditional
in tone is Albi Maak (My Heart is With You), on which
older scholar Al Kahlawy offers romantic advice from a café
like stage set, with coffee brown walls, lit candles and soft
music. She starts each show by answering a phone call from a
woman with a controversial problem. On one episode, a woman
sought advice after finding out her daughter’s husband
was gay; on another, a woman discovered her 60-year-old husband
had taken a mistress. In a second segment, she answers seven
or eight questions sent to her in emails. For the finale of
each show, a woman appears on the set, dramatically back lit
so that only her silhouette is visible. In a live interview,
Al Kahlawy coaches her through her questions about divorce,
plastic surgery, or other concerns.
Abu Haiba and Resala’s
other founders say they are using the tools of modern media
and celebrity to attract people to Islam. In doing so, they
are trying to be more appealing to audiences than Saleh’s
simple Egyptian satellite channel production. It remains to
be seen, however, how much style will count when it comes to
determining how modern Islamic women choose to practice their
religion.
In the final analysis,
Saleh’s program and the sleek women’s shows on Resalah
may have more similarities than differences. Both convert the
practice of Islamic advice-giving into rushed moments and sound
bytes. The shows provide guidance without context, and callers
gain none of the sense of personal connection they could get
in taking to a local religious authority. Yet the shows also
assert an important role for women in the burgeoning field of
Islamic religious programming. The desirability of female audiences—as
well as the desire to influence female opinion on Islamic practice—is
encouraging Islamic channels to have programs hosted by and
catering to women. What women sheikhas are saying about
Islam on television is becoming important, not because their
opinions have been certified by a mufti, but because viewers
are paying attention.
Sharon Otterman is a Fulbright researcher
and journalist in Cairo writing about women and political reform.
From 2003 to 2005, she worked as staff writer and associate
director at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. In
2002, she was a congressional correspondent in Washington for
United Press International. Ms. Otterman holds an M.A. in International
Affairs from Columbia University and a B.A. in Philosophy from
Yale University. She has also lived and worked in China, Kosovo,
and Slovakia.
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