The Women in the Life of the Prophet Moses (2/2)
Barbara Freyer Stowasser
This scripturalist connection of historical Islam's holy women with those of earlier sacred history goes beyond reaffirmation of the Qur'anic theme of Islam's position as interpreter of all past revelations. The women have here been joined in an archetype of righteousness.[1] Its core is female commitment to God and obedience to His command. Secondary aspects are virginity and/ or freedom from female physical symptoms such as menstruation and post*partem bleeding. Asya's Hadith-recorded marriage to an impotent Pharaoh here equals Mary's virginity which, in turn, is connected with Fatima's Hadith * recorded freedom from defilement.[2] Likewise, Khadija is given the honorific title al-tahirah, "the pure."[3] (Even though the classical Hadith records that Khadija was married twice before her marriage to Muhammad,[4] a contemporary pious reader on her life even makes her Muhammad's virgin bride who had previously spumed all suitors from among the "Arab nobles and princes").[5]
Virginity and purity are then, thirdly, conjoined with motherhood: Asya's by adoption, Mary's by the power of God's spirit. Khadija was the mother of all of the Prophet's children but one,[6] and Fatima the mother of Muhammad's grandsons Hasan and Husayn who, to many Muslims, were his true heirs.
This paradigm no longer informs contemporary writings on Asya's righteousness. Her story now exemplifies the believer's duty to testify to God's Oneness even at the peril of life. Neither spouse nor relatives can stand in the way of true devotion to God. With Asya, it was the Pharaoh's claim to be a god and his people's fearful prostrations before him that struck her as mad* ness. The torture of innocent believers then prompted her to declare her faith openly; when she would not be dissuaded even by her own mother, she suffered a martyr's death.[7] "Closest to Pharaoh, her spirit was farthest away."[8]
Asya now proves to the Muslim woman that (in Islam) the female has the freedom to choose her faith, even if against the will of a tyrannical husband.[9]
Of Moses' wife the Qur'an only tells that she was an old Madyanite sheepherder’s[10] daughter. In some qisas al-anbiya', she is identified as Zipporah (Safura],[11] the young woman who "walked bashfully" (Surah Al-Qasas, 28:25) and suggested to her father that he hire Moses (Surah Al-Qasas, 28:26).[12] The story has also been embellished with some further details. It is said that the sheepherder's daughters could not water their small flock because the shepherds had placed a large stone on the well, which only Moses could remove.[13] Else, they lacked the strength to jostle the male crowd.[14] Greater emphasis is placed on the "bashful gait" (Surah Al-Qasas, 28:25) of the Madyanite girl who returned to Moses still sitting at the well.[15] "She walked in the manner that free [not slave] women walk,"[16] to invite him to her father's house. On the way to her home, and while she was walking in front of Moses, the wind lifted up her garment and he saw her thigh.[17] It was then that Moses asked the young woman to walk behind him and throw pebbles to show in which direction he should proceed, so that neither her figure nor her voice would be apparent to him, the male stranger.[18]
In contemporary Muslim literature, the daughters of the Madyanite patriarch loom even larger as models for emulation by the righteous Muslim female. Their model behavior, firstly, is seen in their attitude toward work in the public sphere, that is, outside their home; secondly, a paradigm is once again derived from the personal comportment (of one of them). On the former point, the conservative Muslim argument is as follows:
Islamic morality requires that the woman work in her home and refrain from participation in public life and public affairs; Islam has established that women's work should be done within the parameters of the family, except in cases of established and unavoidable necessity. Now the two young women in Madyan were obliged to water their animals in public because their father was a very old man. This is an example of "the need to work"; but here the two women’s righteousness consisted in the fact that "they held their animals back until the male shepherds were done," so that they avoided mingling with the men in their work.[19]
This Qur'anic story, then, here serves as scripturalist proof that Muslim women's work outside of the home is religiously acceptable only as long as it is truly unavoidable and does not entail association with strangers (that is, nonrelated males).[20] Moses' righteousness prompted him to do the job for the women in order to relieve them of what contemporary conservatives assert was a moral burden. Here the understanding is that what Moses did for the two young women in Madyan must now be done by Muslim society at large. Muslim society, be it the immediate neighborhood or society at large, must take cognizance when a woman is compelled by circumstances to leave her "natural arena" to work elsewhere, and it must help her out so that she may safely return to her home. As for the woman, she must strive with all her might to settle the contingency at the earliest moment possible. The two women in Madyan did this by asking their old father to hire Moses since he was "strong and trustworthy." They had not worked outside of the home because of preference but because of need; and they eliminated this need at the earliest possibility. This, then, presents a model to be followed by all believing Muslim women.[21] Contemporary conservative teaching continues to find a second paradigm in this story in the old sheepherder's daughter's "bashful gait" when it emphasizes that this young woman "walked like a true female, not trying to behave like a man.... Therein lies another lesson for the contemporary Muslim woman."[22]
In the medieval model, the "bashful gait" separated the free-born (respectable) Muslim woman from the (not-so respectable) slave; at present, the "bashful gait" separates the traditional Muslim woman from her modernist sister who "tries to behave like a man."
[1] For this combination of myth and history, Newby and others have used the term "mythomorphism" (Newby, Prophet, p. 17).
[2] Cf. ch. 7, below.
[3] Ibn Sa'd (d. 845), Kitab al-tabaqat al-kabir, vol. 8, ed. Carl Brockelmann (Leiden: Brill, 1904), p. 8.
[4] To Abu Hala Hind ibn al Nabbash, and thereafter to Atiq ibn Abid ibn Abd Allah (ibid., p. 8).
[5] Syed A. A. Razwy, Kbadija-tul-Kubra (Elmhurst: Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc., 1990), pp. 13-14.
[6] Cf. below, Part II.
[7] al-Shal, Qisas, pp. 118-122.
[8] al-Shal, Qisas, p. 117. This writer (p. 119) adds that Asya rejoiced in Moses' da'wa ("call to the cause of true monotheism"), and that she used to listen to Moses' exhortations from behind the hijab ("curtain separating believing womenfolk from male strangers"). On the hijab of Qur'an, 33:53 and its interpretations, cf Part II, below.
[9] Al-Sha'rawi, Qadaya, pp. 10-11; and Stowasser, Impulse, p. 267.
[10] There is no medieval consensus on whether this shaykh was the Madyanite prophet Shu'ayb, Majority opinion is that he was not, even though he is said to have been a relative of Shu'ayb (nephew, or first cousin); else, perhaps, a believer who belonged to Shu'ayb's community, or the kahin ("soothsayer") o fthe Madyanites (cf Ibn Kathir, Qisas, vol. II, p. 19, where his name is given as Yathrun). The disagreement continues in modern popular literature; cf Sha'rawi, Qadaya, p. 20, as opposed to al-Shal, Qisas, p. 114.
[11] Thackston, al-Kisa'i, p. 222; cf. al-Shal, Qisas, pp. 113-114.
[12] Because of her suggestion to hire Moses, medieval traditions have ranked this young woman among "the three most discerning people." She is said to share this honor with the Aziz of Egypt who, having purchased the prophet Joseph, instructed his wife to "make his stay honorable"; and also with the first caliph of Islam, Abu Bakr, who appointed Umar ibn al-Khattab as his successor (Ibn Kathir, Qisas, vol. II, p. 19). In modern popular interpretation, this young woman's strength by contrast is said to have emerged when she was lost with Moses in the Sinai ... on a cold and rainy night, and about to begin labor in the birth of their child; then, as soon as God had called Moses and he returned from the sacred place, "a new stage began for this woman ... she became her husband's spiritual ally and supporter" (al-Shal, Qisas, pp. 115-116).
[13] Ibn Kathir, Qisas, vol. II, pp. 16-17. It was of a weight that only ten men could budge.
[14] Ibn Kathir, Qisas, vol. II, p. 158.
[15] Moses then was destitute. He was very hungry, and his sandals had fallen off his feet during his journey from Egypt to Madyan (Ibn Kathir, Qisas, vol. II, p. 17).
[16] Ibn Kathir, Qisas, vol. II, p. 18; here meant are the modest stride and downcast eyes of the paradigmatic "free" (and by definition "respectable") Muslim woman as opposed to the expansive stride and roving eyes of the paradigmatic "slave woman." Female slaves were women born into slavery, or non-Muslims taken prisoners of war; traded at slave markets or sent as gifts to important men, they were poor and exploited or, in some cases, highly educated and/or powerful. While they represented a large and important segment of medieval Muslim societies, in legal rights and obligations, status and societal "expectation" slave women were a class apart from free women.
[17] Thackston, al-Kisa'i, p. 222.
[18] Ibn Kathir, Qisas, vol. II, pp. 19, 159; Thackston, al-Kisa'i, pp. 221-222. For a modern version, al-Shal, Qisas, p. 114. The Islamic institution of gender segregation has traditionally involved injunctions against any form of female "presence" in relation to strangers. Forbidden, then, were Sight (hence, female segregation in the home and veiling when abroad); speech; the jiggling of hidden jewelry; and also scent. On issues of gender segregation, cf Part II, below.
[19] Paraphrase of al-Sha'rawi, Qadaya, p. 21.
[20] Cf. Stowasser, Impulse, pp. 269-270.
[21] al-Sha'rawi, Qadaya, pp. 23-26; cf Stowasser, Impulse, pp. 269-270.
[22] Al-Sha'rawi, Qadaya, p. 22.