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Women’s Political Leadership: One Question and Two Divergent Fatwās

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2022

Emine Enise Yakar Open the ORCID record for Emine Enise Yakar [Opens in a new window]
Emine Enise Yakar*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Islamic Law, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University
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Abstract

Women’s political leadership is one of the abiding controversial issues among Muslim scholars. The question of whether a Muslim woman can lead in her country is generally answered negatively by Muslim scholars, but some modern scholars explicitly support women’s political leadership without any restriction. Where the scholars stand on the issue is influenced by their social context. With the intent of examining the interaction between social context and Islamic legal methodologies in fatwās—Isalmic legal opinions—related to women, the author discusses as exemplary texts the fatwās issued by two well-known religious institutions, the Dār al-Iftā’ in Saudi Arabia and the Diyanet in Turkey. The institutions function in different social contexts: Saudi Arabia is a theocratic monarchy that applies Islamic law; Turkey is a democratic country whose legal system is based on a secular law. Through a detailed analysis of the spatio-temporal fatwās regarding women’s political leadership, the author provides insight into the influence of contextual elements during the process of issuing fatwās, suggesting that these differences of opinion among Muslim scholars and religious institutions will continue.

Keywords

Islamic lawwomen’s leadershipDiyanetDār al-Iftā’Saudi ArabiaTurkey
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , May 2022 , pp. 332 - 362
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University

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References

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24 Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, 1982, article 2, https://global.tbmm.gov.tr/docs/constitution_en.pdf.

25 Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, 1982, article 4.

26 Act no. 633 dated 22 June 1965, Resmi Gazzete, no. 12038 (July 2, 1965), https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/arsiv/12038.pdf.

27 Act no. 6002 dated 1 July 2010, Resmi Gazzete, no. 27640 (July 13, 2010), https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2010/07/20100713-2.htm.

28 Act no. 6002 dated 1 July 2010.

29 Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 75.

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31 Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 92.

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35 Calderini terms the first approach “conservative” and the second approach “progressive” in analyzing the issue of female prayer leadership to evidence the use of the tradition and the recovery of the past in building the present legal opinions. Calderini, Women as Imams, 7, 13, 166–71. Instead of using Calderini’s denomination, I prefer to term the first approach “orthodox” for its predominant acceptance among majority Muslims and the second approach “reformist” because of its emphasis on a need of reform, especially in the realm of ‘ibādāt (ritual practices) whose forms, limits, and rulings were identified and fixed by the Prophet in a way that is not open to any change. A minority of Muslim scholars espouse the reformist approach.

36 For the Dār al-Iftā”s fatwās on this issue, see the following: Fatwā No. 2428, in Fatwas of the Permanent Committee, 7:391–92, accessed August 30, 2021, https://www.alifta.gov.sa/En/IftaContents/PermanentCommitee/Pages/FatawaSubjects.aspx?cultStr=en&View=Page&HajjEntryID=0&HajjEntryName=&RamadanEntryID=0&RamadanEntryName=&NodeID=633&PageID=2552&SectionID=7&SubjectPageTitlesID=2593&MarkIndex=19&0#Isitpermissibleforawomanto; Fatwā No. 2218, in Fatwas of the Permanent Committee, 7:392, accessed August 30, 2021, https://www.alifta.gov.sa/En/IftaContents/PermanentCommitee/Pages/FatawaChapters.aspx?View=Page&PageID=2553&CultStr=&PageNo=1&NodeID=1&BookID=7. For the Diyanet’s fatwā, see Kurulu, Din İşleri Yüksek, Fetvalar [Fatwās] (Ankara: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı Yayınları, 2015), 169 Google Scholar.

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40 Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu, Fetvalar, 169.

41 Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu, 169.

42 Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu, 168–69. The Ḥanafī school qualifies the women’s leading women in prayer as a reprehensible act; the Mālikī school rejects such a position; and the Shāfi‘ and Ḥanbalī schools approve women leading women in prayer, applying the ‘A’isha and Umm Salama ḥadīths as legal evidence. For details on the positions of the four schools, see Calderini, Women as Imams, 62–77.

43 Fatwā No. 11780, in Fatwas of the Permanent Committee, 17:13–16, accessed May 5, 2022, https://www.alifta.gov.sa/En/IftaContents/PermanentCommitee/Pages/FatawaChapters.aspx?cultStr=en&View=Page&PageID=6291&PageNo=1&BookID=7.

44 Āḥād hadith means reports that were transmitted by a limited number of chains of transmission.

45 Fatwā No. 11780.

46 Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları” [The participation of women in business and political life], Din İṣleri Yüsek Kurulu Dini Bilgilendirme Platformu, accessed August 27, 2015, https://fetva.diyanet.gov.tr/Karar-Mutalaa-Cevap/2913/kadinlarin-is-hayatinda-ve-yonetimde-yer-almalari. Currently, this report is not available on the Diyanet’s website, but it is available (in Turkish) at Sorularla İslamiyet (website): “Kadınların devlet başkanı, hakim ve vali olması ile ilgili, ‘Bir kavmin başına kadın hükümdar gelirse, o kavim helak olmaya mahkumdur.’ şeklinde bir hadis-i şerif var mıdır?” [With regard to appointing women as president, judge and governor, is there a hadīth meaning that if a woman ruler is appointed to her community, this community is doomed to vanish?], Sorularla İslamiyet, accessed August 6, 2021, https://sorularlaislamiyet.com/kadinin-devlet-baskani-hakim-ve-vali-olmasi-ile-ilgili-bir-kavmin-basina-kadin-hukumdar-gelirse-o. I provide translations of key passages of the Diyanet’s report throughout my analysis.

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48 Fatwā No. 11780. The ḥadīth states: “Never will succeed such a nation as makes a woman their ruler.” Abū ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn Ismā’īl al-Buhārī, Hadīth no. 7099, in Mokhtaser Sahih al-Bukhari: Text and Translation, vol. 9, trans. Ahmad Zidan and Dina Zidan (Cairo: Islamic Inc. Publishing, 1999), 1583. In the other version of the same hadith, Abū Bakra relates, “God benefited me during the days (of the battle) of Al-Jamal [Camel], Allāh benefited me with a word I heard from Allāh’s Messenger after I had been about to join the companions of Al-Jamal (i.e., the camel) and fight along with them. When Allāh’s Messenger was informed that the Persians had crowned the daughter of Kisra (Khosrau) as their ruler, he said, “Such people as ruled by a lady will never be successful.” Al-Buhārī, Hadīth no. 4425, in Zidan and Zidan, Moktaser Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukharī, vol. 5, 436.

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60 Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

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62 Fatwā No. 11780.

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83 Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 186–90; Amalkhon Y. Azimova, “Political Participation and Political Repression: Women in Saudi Arabia” (master’s thesis, University of Denver, 2016), 19.

84 Within the legal methodology of the Ḥanbalī madhhab, a ḥadīth—whether it is transmitted along multiple paths (mutawātir), solitary (āḥād), widespread (mashhūr or mustafīḍ), or strange or rare (gharīb)—constitutes an invaluable and indispensable legal source. Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 186–87.

85 In applying āḥād ḥadīths as legal evidence, the Ḥanafī madhhab identifies some conditions, so the probative value of these ḥadīths is controversial within the legal methodology of this madhhab. Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 189–90.

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104 Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 20.

105 Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 101–07; Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 68–9.

106 Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 101; Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 68–69.

107 Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 106.

108 Al-Atawneh, 107; Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 69.

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115 Kandiyoti, 22.

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124 Since 2003, the number of women religious officers in the Diyanet has incrementally increased. Women have been employed as Qur’an teachers, religious experts, and vice-muftīs. In 2017, Huriye Marti also assumed the vice-presidency of the institution. See Chiara Maritato, “Addressing the Blurred Edges of Turkey’s Diaspora and Religious Policy: Diyanet Women Preachers Sent to Europe,” European Journal of Turkish Studies, no. 27 (2018), paragraphs 1–3, https://doi.org/10.4000/ejts.6020. However, despite this increased inclusion of women into the body of the Diyanet, as noted, no woman has joined the High Board of Religious Affairs—the highest religious body that is responsible for issuing fatwās—since its establishment.

125 Azimova, “Political Participation,” 21.

126 Azimova, 43.

127 Azimova, 24.

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133 Fatwā No. 11780.

134 Fatwā No. 11780.

135 The ḥadīth identifies two types of deficiencies in women: one in religion and one in intellect. In the ḥadīth, the Prophet is narrated to explain that women’s deficiency in reason is linked to being incomplete witness and their deficiency in religion is connected to their state of impurity through menstruation, which prevents them from regular prayers. Abū ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn Ismā’īl al-Buhārī, Hadīth no. 477, in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukharī, vol. 1, trans. Muhammad Muhsin Khan (Riyadh: Dar al-Salam, 1997), 210. Muslim scholars have differently explained deficiency in women and its limits. For example, Dabūsī construes the deficiency in women as a legal inability that is only restricted to the realm of ‘ibādāt. In his view, this legal inability does not extend to the realm of mu‘āmalāt. See Hakime Reyyan Yaşar, “Taḳvîmü’l-edille fi’l-uṣûl Adlı Eserde Akıl ve Akıl-Mükellef İlişkisi” [Reason and relationship between reason and obligant in the treatise Taqyīm al- Adilla fī’l-Uṣūl], in Akıl Kitabı—7 Mantık, Metafizik, Ahlak, Din, İnanç ve Dilde Akıl [Reason book—7, Logic, metaphysic, ethic, religion, belief and reason in language], ed. Turgut Akyüz (İstanbul: Ravza Yayınları 2021), 205–30, at 221.

136 Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 5; Azimova, “Political Participation,” 14.

137 Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 5.

138 Omair, “Stereotypes of Saudi Women,” 27.

139 Fatwā No. 11780, Fatwas of the Permanent Committee, 17:13–16.

140 Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 57.

141 Al-Rasheed, 16–17, 57, 119–20, 153–74.

142 Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

143 Arat, “Gender and Citizenship,” 160.

144 Maritato, Women, Religion and the State, 95–97.

145 Çaha, “The ‘Islamic Women’s’ Movement,” 298–99.

146 Kesgin, “Profile of Power,” 150–52; Maritato, Women, Religion and the State, 16–18, 100.

147 Kesgin, “Profile of Power,” 188.

148 Maritato, Women, Religion and the State, 253–57.

149 Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

150 Maritato, Women, Religion and the State, 253–54.

151 Maritato, 271–72, 281, 283–84.

152 Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

153 Ali Akbar, “Promoting Gender Equality within Islamic Tradition via Contextualist Approach,” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 10, no. 8 (2016): 2617–22, at 2617, https://zenodo.org/record/1125643.