Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:15:47.582Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feminism, Class, and Islam In Turn-of-the-Century Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Juan Ricardo Cole
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The emergence of feminist thought in Egypt at the turn of the last century has often been remarked upon, but there has been little rigorous analysis of its social context and background. As keen an observer as Gabriel Baer has ventured to write that in nineteenth-century Egypt “evidently the traditional structure of the family and the status of women did not undergo any change at all.” On the face of it, however, it seems highly unlikely that the expansion of the urban and rural middle classes, the emergence of private property, the period of state capitalism, and the onset of colonial rule could have left women unaffected.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , November 1981 , pp. 387 - 407
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

Author's note: I would like to express my thanks to Nikki Keddie for suggesting the topic of this paper and for her helpful comments on an earlier draft. I am also grateful to the Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA for a grant which allowed me to undertake the research for this paper, and to Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot for her astute editorial suggestions.

1 Baer, Gabriel, Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), p. 210.Google Scholar

2 Tucker, Judith, “Decline of the Family Economy in Mid-Nineteenth Century Egypt,” Arab Studies Quarterly, I: 3 (Summer 1979), 245–271.Google Scholar

3 E.g., Philipp, Thomas, “Feminism and Nationalist Politics in Egypt,” in Beck, Lois and Keddie, Nikki, eds., Women in the Muslim World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 277–294.Google Scholar

4 See the introduction by Beck, and Keddie, to Women in the Muslim World, pp. 1–34,Google Scholar and Gran, Judith, “Impact of the World Market on Egyptian Women,” MERIP Reports, 58 (06 1977), 3–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Beck, and Keddie, , Women in the Muslim World, pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

6 See the discussion in Eric, M. Davis. “Bank Misr and the Political Economy of Industrialization in Egypt, 1920–1941,” Ph.D. dis., University of Chicago, 1977.Google Scholar

7 Gran, Peter, Islamic Roots of Capitalism, Egypt 1760–1840 (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1979).Google Scholar

8 Baer, Gabriel, A History of Landownership in Egypt (London: Oxord University Press, 1962), pp. 50–56.Google Scholar

9 Alexander, Schölch, Ägypten den Ägyprern! Die politische und gesellschaftliche Krise der Jahre 1878–1882 in Agypten (Freiburg: Atlantic Verlag, 1972), pp. 42–45.Google Scholar

10 Davis, , “Bank Misr,” pp. 146–148.Google Scholar

11 Gran, J., “Impact of the World Market,” p. 4.Google Scholar

12 Baer, , History of Landownership, pp. 64–70.Google Scholar

13 Davis, , “Bank Misr,” pp. 41–45.Google Scholar

14 ibid., pp. 173–174.

15 Qāsim, AmĪn, TḥahrĪr al-mar'ah, in al-A'māl al-Kāmilah li QasĪm AmḥĪn, Muḥammad, 'Imārah, ed., 2 vols. (Beirut: Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 1976), II, 16–18 (hereafter al A'māl).Google Scholar

16 Baer, , Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt, p. 215.Google Scholar

17 ibid., p. 136.

18 Mansfield, Peter, The British in Egypt (London: Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), p. 111.Google Scholar

19 ibid.

20 Chirot, Daniel, Social Change in the Twentieth Century (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), pp. 64–65.Google Scholar

21 ibid., pp. 67–69.

22 Earl of Cromer, , Modern Egypt (London: Macmillan and Co., 1911), p. 561.Google Scholar

23 Baer, , Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt, p. 226.Google Scholar

24 ibid., p. 224.

25 Cromer, , Modern Egypt, p. 815.Google Scholar

26 See J. Gran, “Impact of the World Market.”

27 Tomiche, Nadia, “Egyptian Women in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,” in Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East, William, R. Polk and Richard, L. Chambers, eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 177Google Scholar (al-JabartĪ4:217–218).Google Scholar

28 Tomiche, , “Egyptian Women,” p. 177Google Scholar (al-JabartĪ 4:172);Google ScholarGran, P., Islamic Roots of Capitalism, p. 33.Google Scholar

29 Tomiche, , “Egyptian Women,” p. 175.Google Scholar

30 Tucker, , “Decline of the Family Economy,” pp. 269, 271.Google Scholar

31 Afaf, Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, “The Revolutionary Gentlewomen in Egypt,” in Beck, and Keddie, , eds., Women in the Middle East, pp. 261–276.Google Scholar

32 Gran, J., “Impact of the World Market,” p. 5.Google Scholar

33 ibid.

34 Gerth, H. H. and Wright Mills, C., eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 186 ff.Google Scholar

35 Davis, , “Bank Misr,” p. 141.Google Scholar

36 de Guerville, A. B., New Egypt (London: William Heinemann, 1906), p. 141.Google Scholar

37 Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 224.Google Scholar

38 Gran, J., “Impact of the World Market,” p. 7 n.Google Scholar

39 See RashĪd, Riḍa, Ḥuqūq an-nisā fĪ'l-Islām: nidā' ilā al-fins al-laṭĪf (Beirut: al-Kitāb al-IslāmĪ, 1975);Google Scholaridem, , “TaqrĪẓ TaḥrĪr al-mar'ah ” al-Manar, 2 (1899), 282–284.Google Scholar

40 Aḥmad, ash-SharabāṣĪ, RashĪd Riḍā ṣāḥib al-Manār (Beirut: Maṭābi' al-Ahrām at-Tijāriyyah, 1970), pp. 166–169.Google Scholar

41 RashĪd, Riḍā, “Ta'lĪm an-nisā'”, al-Manār, 2 (1899), 332–334.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., p. 371.

43 Cairo: Barbier, Jules, 1894.Google Scholar An Arabic translation is included in 'Imārah, , ed., al-A'māl, I, 249–347.Google Scholar

44 Qāsim, AmĪn, al-Miṣriyūn: radd 'alā ad-dūq Dārqūr in al-A'māt, I, 279–280.Google Scholar

45 Ibid., p. 281.

46 Afaf, Lutfi al-Sayyid, Egypt and Cromer: A Study in Anglo-Egyptian Relations, (London: John Murray, 1968), p. 187.Google Scholar

47 For AmĪn's life, see Muḥammad 'Imārah's introduction to al-A'māl.

48 Guerville, de, New Egypt, pp. 146–147.Google Scholar

49 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr al-mar'ah in al-A'māl, II, 71.Google Scholar

50 Ibid., p. 16.

51 AmĪn, , al-Mar'ah al-jadĪdah in al-A āmāl, II, 119.Google Scholar

52 AmĪ, , TaḥrĪr in al-A 'māl, II, 68.Google Scholar

53 AmĪn, , al-Mar'ah al-jadĪdah in al-A 'māl, II, 132.Google Scholar

54 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr in al-A'māl, II, 80–81.Google Scholar

55 ibid., pp. 37–40.

56 AmĪn, , al-Mar'ah al-jadĪdah in al-A 'māl, II, 214–215.Google Scholar

57 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr in al-A'māl, II, 69–71.Google Scholar

58 AmĪn, , al-Mar'ah al-jadĪdah in al-A'māl, II, 220.Google Scholar

59 Ibid., pp. 125–26.

60 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr in al-A 'māl, II, 16.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., p. 17.

62 Ibrahim, Amin Ghali, L'égypte nationaliste et libérale de Moustapha Kamel È Saad Zaghloul (1892–1927) (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969), p. 30.Google Scholar

63 Guerville, de, New Egypt, 146–147.Google Scholar

64 Muḥammad, Ṭal'at Ḥarb, Faṣl al-khiṭāb fĪ'l-mar'ah wa'l-ḥijāb (Cairo: at-TaraqqĪ Press, 1901), p. 16.Google Scholar

65 Guerville, de, New Egypt, p. 146.Google Scholar

66 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr in al-A'māl, II, 74.Google Scholar

67 Gran, G., “Impact of the World Market,” p. 4.Google Scholar

68 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr in al-A'māl, II, 31.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., pp. 66–67.

70 Ghali, , L'Égypte nationaliste, p. 30.Google Scholar

71 AmĪn, , al-Mar'ah al-jadĪdah in al-A'māl, II, 225.Google Scholar

72 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr in al-A'm āl, II, 44.Google Scholar

73 Guerville, de, New Egypt, p. 148.Google Scholar

74 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr in al-A'māl, II, 46–51.Google Scholar

75 E.g., Aḥmad Luṭfi as-Sayyid himself was sent by his father; see Lutfi, al-Sayyid, Egypt and Cromer, p. 185.Google Scholar

76 See Ḥarb, Faṣl al-khiṭrāb.

77 Guerville, de, New Egypt, p. 148;Google ScholarCromer, , Modern Egypt, p. 884.Google Scholar

78 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr in al-A 'māl, II, 25.Google Scholar

79 Ibid., pp. 88–89.

80 Ibid., pp. 28, 38, 67, 87–89. Cf., Eli Zaretsky, Capitalism, the Family, and Personal Life (New York: Harper Colophon, 1976), pp. 38–47.Google Scholar

81 Parkin, Frank, Class Inequality and Political Order (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), p. 15.Google Scholar

82 Oakley, Ann, The Sociology of Housework (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

83 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr in al-A'māl, II, 37–38.Google Scholar

84 Ibid., p. 22.

85 AmĪn, , al-Mar'ah al-jadĪdah in al-A'māl, II, 162.Google Scholar

86 Ibid., p. 141.

87 Ibid., p. 146.

88 Ibid., pp. 166–167.

89 Ibid., pp. 166–173.

90 AmĪn, , TaḥrĪr in al-A'māl, II, 20–21.Google Scholar

91 Ibid., pp. 21–22.

92 Robert, L. Tignor, Modernization and British Colonial Rule in Egypt 1882–1914 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 321–323.Google Scholar

93 Ibid., pp. 323, 343.

94 See 'Abd, al-Muta'āl M. al-JabarĪ ed., al-Muslimah al- 'aṣriyyah 'ind Bāḥithat al-Bādiyah Malak ḤifnĪ Nāṣif (Cairo: Dār al-Bayān, 1976), pp. 56–57, 91, 60–61, 124, 41–42, 47, 64Google Scholar (in order of points mentioned). See also the discussion in Philipp, , “Feminism and Nationalist Politics in Egypt,” 283–286.Google Scholar

95 Muḥammad, Ṭal'at Ḥarb, Tarbiyat al-mar'ah wa'l-ḥijāb (Cairo: 1899);Google Scholar and idem, . Faṣl al-khiṭāb.Google Scholar

96 Davis, , “Bank Misr,” pp. 349–371, 180–181.Google Scholar

97 Ḥarb, , Faṣl al-khitāb, pp. 1, 7, 14–15.Google Scholar

98 Ibid., pp. 5–8.

99 Ibid., pp. 4, 17–18, 48.

100 RashĪd, Riḍā, “TaqrĪẓ al-Mar'ah al-jadĪdah ” al-Manār, 4 (1901), 32–34.Google Scholar

101 Ḥarb, , Faṣl al-khiṭāb, pp. 10–14.Google Scholar

102 RashĪd, Riḍā, Ḥuqūq al-mar'ah, pp. 182–184.Google Scholar

103 Ḥarb, , Faṣl al-khiṭāb, pp. 52–53.Google Scholar

104 Ibid., pp. 4–6, 36.