Masculinity is not the only element that anthropologists and sociologists studying Islam have overlooked. Although the feminist scholars we discussed at the beginning of this chapter have focused on patriarchy as well as the male representation and stereotypes of Muslim women (see Mernissi 1975; Hussain 1984; Sabah 1984;
Ahmed 1992; Roald 2001; Droeber 2005), we know very little, or nothing, about Muslim women’s stereotypes concerning Muslim men. Anthropologists studying
Islam have interpreted the honour/shame complex5 (Peristiany 1965; Wikan 1984;
Akpinar 2003) as mainly based on the male patriarchal control of the women of the family. A noticeable exception is the seminal study of Abu-Lughod (1986).
By studying the concept of honour among Egyptian Bedouins, Abu-Lughod has observed that in that society women hold codified ‘honour’ rules to which men (at least if they want to achieve a successful marriage) must conform:
Women claim, for instance, that ‘real men’ control all their dependents and beat their wives when the wives do stupid things. One woman, whose daughter was about to marry one of the most respected men in the camp, said, ‘my daughter wants a man whose eyes are open – not someone nice . . . No, she wants someone who will order her around’ . . . One old woman told me, ‘when a man is really something [manly] he pays no heed to women.’ ‘A man who listens to his wife when she tells him what to do is a fool’ said a young woman . . . many agreed adding ‘if a man is fool, a woman rides him like a donkey’. (1986: 89, 95) During my research, I started to wonder whether Muslim migrant women could have similar ‘honour rules’ and formed stereotypes concerning the idea of the
‘real’ Muslim man (see Marranci 2006a). I have found that certainly the discourse of honour and shame in Islam could not be limited to the male gender. As in other aspects of gender we have discussed, a full understanding can only be reached if the relationships between the genders are understood as dynamics. Muslim women as well as Muslim men can be affected by the behaviour of their relatives. Stewart (1994) has observed that honour is a bipartite system; the concept would be relevant to both the honour acknowledged and the acknowledger. As for communication, the individuals taking part in the social interaction should share the rules on which honour is granted or withdrawn. In the case of honour/shame, it is true that in a majority of cases Muslim women have the unwanted power to dishonour their male relatives by breaking the Islamic norms of modesty, in particular through sexual behaviours. If the Muslim woman ‘brings shame’ on her family, the male relatives have to re-establish their jeopardized honour through symbolic, or in the worst cases real physical punishment (Akpinar 2003).
However, since anthropologists have greatly overlooked masculinity in Islam, it is very difficult to find studies which tell us what may happen if it is a male relative who ‘brings shame to the family’ and in what instances shame is brought by a man.
Although more studies in different Muslim societies are needed, having studied Muslim migration in Europe, I have come across some situations in which the honour/shame process saw Muslim men in the position of the one who shames the family. To illustrate, I will offer an ethnographic example I collected in Ireland.
Saida is a 37-year-old Egyptian woman living in Dublin who married a 43-year-old Egyptian man, Eyad, convinced that he could find fortune in Europe as a businessman. He sold his little shop in Cairo and transferred his wife and two daughters to Dublin. Eyad was known in his neighbourhood to be a good Muslim who cared for his family and went to the jum‘a every Friday. Saida was not so happy about her husband’s move. She was very worried about the education of
their daughters and the influence that a non-Muslim country might have on them.
Her husband opened the shop that he dreamt of and started to build up a successful business. He also began to enjoy the life of Dublin, mixing with non-Muslim friends and patronizing pubs. Very soon afterwards, he drank alcohol, though was never drunk, and avoided the mosque. He still defined himself a Muslim, but decided to stop practising. Saida was particularly concerned about her husband’s new behaviour and tried to convince him to ‘go back to Islam’. Although he promised her many times that he would resume practising at the beginning of each Ramaóan, he never did. Meanwhile, back in Egypt, Saida’s family became aware of the problems she was facing with her husband and one of Saida’s brothers decided to approach his brother-in-law’s family, whose father was very religious.
Saida, who used to go to the mosque regularly, in particular for the weekly Muslim Women’s Circle, was made aware of the gossip concerning her husband.
Some Muslim women blamed her for the non-Islamic behaviour of her husband.
Gossip about Saida’s daughters, who at that time were aged fifteen and seventeen, also started to spread among the Egyptian community. Of course, the behaviour of Saida’s husband had affected the reputation of Saida and her daughters; in other words, it had affected Saida’s ‘honour’ as a good Muslim woman, expressed in the function of wife and mother. During one of our interviews, she was very distressed and told me that she was planning to divorce and go back to her family in Egypt,
‘How can I feel proud of my husband when he is even unable to achieve respect from his own children?’ She stated, ‘He has not even the respect of his family in Egypt. He could have money now, but he has lost his Muslim identity and brought shame to everybody, in particular to me and his daughters, who, Inshallah, I hope will still find a good Muslim husband, despite the reputation of their own father.’
She then concluded, ‘My divorce is justified; I have an Islamic dignity, I am a Muslim woman and I will not compromise any longer’.
Eyad did not bring shame to his family by disrupting the Islamic rules of modesty, something that, according to the Qur’an, not only Muslim women should respect but Muslim men also. By failing to be the ‘good Muslim’, the responsible Muslim father and husband, and indulging in overtly ‘western’ behaviours, Eyad had ‘brought shame’ to his family. The community had noticed that he stopped practising Islam, and this disrupted the reputation that his wife and daughters had enjoyed before.
It is clear that Muslim women have formed a certain model of masculinity, which, like the Muslim men’s feminine ideal, is based on Islamic values. There is a relationship between the dynamics of honour and shame between the genders.
Both men and women are considered, though in different roles, the guardians of the religion. Honour is not only linked to a respect for gender roles among the members of the family and expected moral behaviours, but femininity and masculinity are charged and embedded with a sanctity which makes them responsible for each other’s dīn. If this is correct, as I think (yet more research is needed on this subject), it means that the western concept of patriarchy is not useful to a correct analysis of gender in Islam and new approaches, going beyond classic feminist ideologies, are needed.