To react to the rise of radical Islam, the King of Morocco proposes to support women’s greater involvement within the religious sphere. “We wish to see women who are experts in the religious studies participate in these Councils (of ulemas or theologians), because we hope to achieve greater equality for them as well as equality between men and women.” In 2003 King Mohammed VI invited Rajae Najji Mekaoui, a university law professor at Mohammed V University in Rabat, to be the first woman to give a lecture in Dorous Hassania (a series of lectures) at the Royal Palace mosque. The Hassania lectures are a series of lectures presided over by the King every Ramadan, and attended by the highest civil and military officials and religious authorities from all over the Muslim world. Since then, other women have been giving lectures in the same series.
Within the new context of the Family Code reform and the State position on the compatibility between universal truths of women’s right and Islam, women are given a symbolic role to play (1) in religious affairs to promote Islamic arguments for gender equality. In his role of the Amir al moumimine (Commander of the Faithful) the king is involving female religious scholars and directing their interest to women’s issues. In the aftermath of the Casablanca terrorist attacks, under the supervision of the King, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs embarked upon a widespread project for the reform of the religious sphere, in which women were involved in the State’s attempt to lay the foundations for and the revival a “Moroccan Islam.”
After the terrorist attacks, Morocco implemented a religious reorganisation programme. According to observers this reorganisation is a reaction to the rise of “radical” Islam promoted in particular by Middle Eastern satellite channels as well as those broadcasting from the Gulf area, which promote a form of Islam considered to be extremist. This propaganda appears to have been one of the main causes of the development of religious fundamentalism. The Kingdom of Morocco believes that its own religious integrity, guaranteed by unity and the nation’s adherence to the Malikite rite, a “tolerant and moderate Moroccan Islam,” is threatened to the extent of being in great danger. The national project for reorganisation of the religious sphere is also a reform following the same egalitarian spirit of Family Law that was changed in 1993, and attributes new civil and religious responsibilities to Moroccan women.
These new responsibilities, however, do not provide men and women with totally equal rights to access holy places such as mosques. The annual training of fifty mourchidates (female preachers) is only addressed at preparing them to play a role in religious organisation, information and sensitisation. In fact, when the training programme for mourchidates was presented, the High Council of Ulemas (theologians of Islam) pronounced a fatwa (a legal opinion) forbidding women from leading prayers. According to the Council, these appointments appear to go against general religious rules, according to which women must pray in silence, while Imams preach out loud. The fatwa was pronounced following a request from the Ministry for Islamic Affairs, which specified how the role of a mourchidate is restricted to the organisation of debates and readings addressed at teaching believers the values of Islam and providing them with information capable of answering some of their questions.
The training of mourchidates includes Islamic studies, courses in psychology, sociology, IT, law and languages. This training, identical to that provided for Imams, includes an additional course in fiqh anisae (women’s law). Although the reform of Family Law was the result of battles undertaken by mainly secular feminists, equality of public religious roles is an initiative undertaken by King Mohamed VI and has never been demanded by Moroccan feminists. As Saba Mahmoud emphasises in her book entitled “The Politics of Piety,” how within the movements of the mosques, piety plays an awkward role in feminist studies. Women imposing themselves in areas until now reserved exclusively to men, however, will have to preserve the practices and ideals rooted in traditions that have historically assigned an inferior role to women.
However, should the mourchidates decide to refer to Islam’s egalitarian school of thought, such as expressed by Moroccan sociologist Fatima Mernissi in her books, and in particular in “Le harem politique: le Prophète et les femmes” and “Sultanes oubliées”, or other Muslim feminists such as Amina Wadud and Asmae Barlas, they would risk moving beyond the simple provision contained in the guidelines from the Ministry for Religious Affairs. According to Saba Mahmoud, the analytical context of the resistance idea does not necessarily include progressive policies. To understand what forms of action characterise schools of thought differing from political liberalism, one should bear in mind that women’s subordination to virtues, such as modesty and humbleness, are conditions favouring the possibility that they may assume public roles in religious and political life.
In April 2004, Attajdid, one of the main Islamist daily newspapers, published a series of interviews with female State Theologians who are members of religious councils as well as some mosque preachers (mourchidates). In an interview with mourchidate Fatima Najjar underlined the importance of avoiding controversy, giving lessons in dialect informed by maqasid (intentional philosophy). She also emphasized the limits she sets for herself by not going beyond her specialisation which consists in using her one year training and following the Ministry’s guidelines. The same Attajdid series also reported on the impact these lessons held by mourchidates are having. Fatima, a housewife who has been attending the lessons, said they helped her become a more pious woman. She discovered the mistakes she used to make in her prayers. Without these lessons she would have continued to pray “inappropriately.”
Radia, another woman attending the lessons, says that most women of her neighbourhood are regularly attending the mosque courses. She says that attending the lessons at the mosque changed her; she became a better person. She used to be hard and attending the lessons made her softer. She adds that women are mostly attracted by lessons that also satisfy their need to learn how to best play the role of mother and wife. Asia Almostquim, a preacher connected to the Religious Council in Rabat, observes that women are mostly attracted by subjects that educate them about family relationships with husbands and children; they also address issues related to the afterlife and judgment day. She also adds that mosques in poor neighbourhoods are the most popular ones in terms of the number of women attending the courses.
The mourchidate (female religious guide) selects the subject according to the needs expressed by women who attend the lessons. She also adds that the most important thing is that a mourchidate should always be aware of her limits and where to stop. For example, she should not dare to speak of issues she is not well-informed about or that are not within the scope of her specialisation and she should also be open to cooperate with more informed theologians.
The State’s strategy
In an interview, the Minister of Islamic Affairs Ahmed Taoufiq said that mourchidates are part of the State’s strategy for the moral protection of citizens. This is an attempt to revive Sufi, Islam’s tolerance and moderation in Morocco. It is this Islam that prevailed in North Africa between the 7th and the 13th centuries. This is the version of Islam that Toufiq would like to revive in Morocco by sponsoring the mourchidates or the female religious teachers’ programme. Unlike the mourchidates who are required to hold a BA and learn half of the Koran by heart before they go through an oral and written entry exam, the alemat (female religious scholars council) are directly appointed by the King and so there is no clear scientific criterion for their accessing the religious council. The kingdom now has 150 mourchidates and 36 female religious scholars working for the different national councils.
Souad Rahaim, a religious scholar of the Eljadida ulema Council, was born in Kenitra in 1964 and earned a PhD in 2000 from the Islamic Studies Department at Eljadida University. Quoting the verse from the Koran, in which women and men are said to be partners in dawa (preaching Islam), Souad Rahaim, interviewed by Attajdid, stated that women’s contribution alongside their male colleagues in religious education is both a religious and developmental necessity. Khadija Ben Hamo is another member of the council of Taroudant. She graduated from the Sharia University in Fez and has been a teacher of Islamic education ever since. She describes herself as one of the first women serving dawa (preaching Islam) in this new era. She attributes this shift in the State’s recruitment policy for religious scholars, as being the result of the young king’s clear and distinct vision of what 21st Century Morocco should look like. She believes that women’s contribution to the reorganisation of the religious sphere will be valuable for reform and modernization.
Fatima Bouselama, who obtained her doctorate in 2004, was also appointed a religious council theologian in Casablanca three months after her graduation. Her task consists of training preachers and dawa (preaching Islam) servants, which means providing believers with guidance on religious issues. She believes that women will contribute on an equal basis with men to bringing to an end the isolation of religious councils from their social environment. She then adds, that women religious scholars tend mostly to be interested in women’s issues and therefore they have better knowledge than their male colleagues of the fiqh anissae (Muslim Law for women).
While training mourchidates, these “alemates” or female theologians, do not engage in any polemics or controversial issues when theologians express different views, and they emphasize the unity of Islam. That is because the amma (ordinary people) do not need to learn about different Islamic doctrines other than the Moroccan Maliki doctrine. This because the confusion caused by one doctrine (madhab) could spoil maqasid (the intentions of Shari ‘a). The commitment to one madhab (school) creates unity and harmony among individual Muslims avoiding fitna (chaos). The main objectives of the preacher should therefore be the emphasis on wahda (unity) in order to establish balance between the interests (maslaha) of the individual and those of the community and spread a culture of cooperation, security and peace.
The Minister of Religious Affairs has stated that the selection of these female theologians took a whole year and that the criteria were that these women, who either work for the highest religious council or the local ones, should be aware of the objectives or intentions of the Shari ‘a (fiqh maquasidi). They should know how to adapt Shari ‘a laws or Islamic laws to present conditions, should be experts in the fiqh and current legislation. The Minister said that these criteria are used to select ulema council members regardless of gender. Taoufiq further noted that the appointment of women has a symbolic significance, because the same scholars will mobilize other women to become involved in theology.
The expectation is that these female theologians will play a major role in promoting moderate Islam (manhag al-wastia). This became more urgent with the amendment of Family Law and the growth of Wahabism, considered responsible for spreading so-called radical Islam that inspired the suicide bombers who executed various attacks in 2003 and 2006.
Changing mentalities: a very difficult task!
In September 2006 Morocco’s High Commissioner for Planning published a report entitled “The Moroccan Woman observed by her Social Environment.” To understand and assess the level of acceptance and/or Moroccans’ resistance to “change” or to what is known as “The National Modernisation and Democratisation Project”, those working for the Ministry for Planning decided to carry out a study on a sample of 7,400 individuals over the age of 15 representing a cross-section of society. This sample consisted of 48% who were men and 52% women, so as to establish statistics measuring adhesion to or rejection of “freedom of attire for women.” As the report shows, this subject was one of many on which Moroccans were asked to express an opinion, perception and behaviour, regarding women’s increasing access to education, paid work and political and institutional leadership.
Without wishing to analyse to what extent the sample chosen by the Ministry’s study represented the people, results of this research indicate Moroccans’ ambivalence concerning women’s access to social and political roles, with a degree of hesitation between adhesion and rejection regards to access to education and paid work. Figures indicated respectively 81% and 74% in favour among those interviewed, while 77% of answers indicated that a woman’s place is in the home. Results also showed that 77.5% answered “against” to the question, “are you in favour of or against freedom of attire for women?”.
Fatima Mernissi’s voice
The results of this survey were made public during a press conference organised by the Ministry for Planning in the presence of Fatima Mernissi, who for a long time has developed a number of arguments based on a various hadiths or ‘words of the Prophet’ on “women’s right to freedom, and Islam’s valorisation of women accessing the highest possible level of education.” Arguments Mernissi developed brilliantly in her work entitled “Le harem politique: le Prophète et les femmes,” a book that was banned when published at the beginning of the Eighties. In 2006, within the framework of the officially announced wish for “change” and reform, Mernissi was invited by a central political institution to defend these theses concerning a moderate Islam open to gender equality and freedom of attire for women. Mernissi states that any opposition to freedom for women is simply the result of Moroccans’ ignorance on the subject of their own religious tradition.
After presenting the aforementioned hadiths, Mernissi proposed another survey analysing the reactions of Moroccans to the hadiths favouring women, such as “only an honourable man will honour them; and only a despicable man will degrade them.” One should observe that these same words, spoken by the Prophet, were used in 2004, by King Mohamed VI to justify the introduction of the idea of gender equality in reforming Family Law. The reform undertaken by King Mohamed VI is part of broader changes in general policies concerning women, based on “Islam’s egalitarian spirit and universal human principles.” Adopting the same attitude used for the reform of Family Law, the King has been innovative in proposing the election of a quota of thirty-three women to the Moroccan Parliament (usually there are three).
Opposing change
Considered an indicator for understanding this resistance to “change” undertaken by the Moroccan authorities, the issue of freedom of attire for women seems to be the most important point in Moroccans’ attitudes concerning reform and modernisation projects. Although the use of the veil has not been directly addressed, the question “are you in favour of or against freedom of attire for women?” is an ambiguous one. This question indicates the importance political institutions attribute to Moroccans having a positive attitude regarding freedom of attire for women. According to the Minister responsible for this survey, results indicate that as far as the status, role and behaviour of women are concerned, Moroccan society is experiencing a phase of transition from a traditional to a modern society. Both the website for the feminist Moroccan network “Anaruz” and the liberal or independent press seemed to share the Minister’s point of view. Their comments emphasise how this greater resistance to modernity was expounded by opposition to freedom of attire for women, and in particular by the fact that not only this disapproval was expressed equally by people from rural areas and cities, but by people considering themselves as “modern”, such as university students, with 85% opposing this idea, while this choice was made only by 71% of uneducated people.
These results concern women as much as they concern the political context, which questions itself on what the nation is at a given time, based firstly on the identity and bodies of women. After being the bastion of national Muslim identity and a stronghold against “western influence”, women are now considered leading players in the national project for modernisation and change.
Souad Eddouada is Professor at the Iben Tofail Kenitra University (Morocco)
Notes:
(1) During a Television interview, the Minister of Islamic Affairs indicated that women alemates (religious scholars) and mourchidates (mosque preachers) are symbolic because they will inspire other women to get publicly involved in Islam.
Translated by Francesca Simmons