Paper presented at the International Conference on Testing and Contesting Regimes of Visibility, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology/Institute for African Studies University of Cologne, Germany, 3-5 July 2013.
Veiled Voices: Islam, Women and Degrees of Visibility in Muslim Hausa Popular Singing
Prof.
Abdalla Uba Adamu
Department of Mass Communications
Bayero University, Kano – Nigeria
(Vice-Chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria)
auadamu@yahoo.com
Introduction
In 1923 Hoda Shaarawi, the founder of the Egyptian women’s
movement, demonstratively threw her
veil into the sea—perceived right from that era as a symbol of oppression
against the liberal
world Egyptian society
occupies. For Egyptian
psychiatrist and feminist,
Nawal El Saadawi
the veil represents “a political symbol
and has nothing
to do with Islam. There is not a single
verse in the Qur’an explicitly mandating it.” However,
to many Muslim women, the veil
offers protection from unwanted attention, creates distance, and makes it
possible for women to gain access to forbidden
spaces; for example, it allows them to obtain employment.
As Hillauer further argues, one thing the veil still
stands for today is the division of living space, since
gender separation is a reflection of how Islamic
societies function. The domestic realm is the female sphere; the public
realm, the male world. This traditional division also serves to keep the universe
of women, mothers,
sisters, wives, and daughters largely
separated from Muslim men. Thus, for instance, “many women who make
films use these separate
worlds—as well as the veil in its various forms—as
a stylistic device
in their films as a metaphor for oppression and also for its opposite, emancipation.” (Hillauer 11).
The veil in Islam is more than a piece of clothing; it
also represents a metaphoric boundary reflecting
female visibility revolving around a core conept
of modesty. Consequently, arguments
about the boundaries of female body forms in the Islamic
public sphere are based on the enforcement of modesty, which
according to El Guindi (1999, 142) is connected to the ‘awra’
which classically refers
to vulnerability, but commonly perceived as ‘nakedness’. As an exposed
part of a intensenly private
portion of the individual, the awra must be covered
– a ruling to applies
to the two Islamically recognized sexes: male and female.
Al-Qaradawi (1995, 150), quoting Hadith [sayings] of the
prophet, further explains that looking
at the 'awrah of another person, where of the same or opposite sex must be
avoided, and ‘whether with or
without desire’. The 'awrah of a man is what is between his navel and his knee. With respect to a man who is not her mahram, a woman's 'awrah
is her entire body excepting only her face and hands, while
with respect to a mahram such as her father or
brother it is different. The Mahram in Islam refers all those males whom
a woman cannot marry at anytime in
her life whatsoever (e.g. one’s father, brother or son etc). The Qur’an is specific about this, as indicated in the
following main verse that explains the relationships between a woman and her Mahram:
And
say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their
modesty; that they should not display
their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that
they should draw their veils over
their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their
sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or
the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical
needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments (Qur’an,
Sūra 24:31 – Al Nūr, or Light].
This Qur’anic injuction therefore precludes any public performance, though not appearance, of a Muslim woman in which non-Mahram males are present.
The Shari’a Moral Police and Public Visibility in Kano
My ethnographic template for the analysis of gendered
public visibility in Hausa popular culture
is provided by the provision of the ‘moral police’ in Kano, northern Nigeria.
The Kano State Government, Nigeria,
reinstituted the Shari’a legal system in 2000 as part of a new Islamization process in a State that that embraced Islam from
Malian clerics in 1380. One of the
instruments of the new Islamization was the establishment of Hisbah Board – a moral police force enjoined to ‘promote
what is good and prevent what is bad’. The announcement
of the Shari’a in Kano had further dramatic effects on the Hausa popular culture industries, and the first point of
such high drama was the tense relationship with suddenly emergent ‘moral
police’, the Hisbah.
In Islam, the Hisbah is an institution under the authority
of the State that appoints people to carry out the responsibility of enjoining what is right,
whenever people start to neglect
it, and forbidding what is wrong, whenever people start to engage in
it. According to Murtuza (2002), the purpose of this is to safeguard society from deviance, protect the faith,
and ensure the welfare of the people in both
religious and worldly manners according to the Law of Allah. Allah has made it obligatory upon all Muslims
to enjoin good and forbid
wrongdoing to the extent of
their knowledge and abilities. Murtuza quotes the Qur’an in which Allah says:
“Let there arise from you a group calling to all that is good, enjoining
what is right and forbidding what is wrong.
It is these who are successful.” (Q.3:104)
Consequently, the term Hisbah took on an institutional form by describing the institution set up
to promote proper and to prevent what is improper (‘amr bil ma’ ruuf wa-n-nahi’ anil munkar,
to promote what is good and to prevent what is improper) in accordance with the call made
in the Qur’an by an Islamic state. Although the Qur’an expects and enjoins
every Muslim to play a positive role
in the propagation of good (ma’ruuf)
and suppression of evil (munkar), it has been made an obligation
on a section of society to remain engaged in it. From the days of the Prophet Muhammad himself, the Islamic state
has been enjoined to institute arrangements to oversee the implementation of this injunction (Murtuza 2002).
Since parts of the Muslim
population in Kano regarded the imposition of an Islamic
order as an instrument to eliminate crime,
corruption and immorality, the behavior of the Nigeria Police aroused their anger. As a result of the perceived
slackness of the Nigeria Police in enforcing
the Shari’a, vigilante groups emerged, calling themselves Hisbah groups. These groups
attacked places where prostitutes were said to ply their trade and where
alcohol was sold. Peters (2001)
suggests that they often took the law into their own hands and excesses occurred
on many occasions.
Thus the Hisbah in Kano virtually created itself in the
throes of the Shari’a launch from the urgings of local Islamic
scholars in Kano, particularly Ustaz Yahaya Faruk Chedi, a lecturer in the Department of Arabic, Bayero University Kano. In the period before the re- implementation
of the Shari’a law, the preacher was recorded (on commercially available audio tapes) at various times in sermons
and radio programs
urging for the establishment of a Hisbah
Corp to ensure the implementation of Shari’a. Outside
the courts, the Kano
Government established the Islamic Education and Social
Affairs Commission by a Law of 2000
to mainly promote, develop, coordinate and generally enhance Islamic religious
and cultural values. The main actors in the social field were the Hisbah groups. Youths voluntarily offered
their services to make the Shari’a a success. Numbering about 11,000 and co-coordinated
mostly at grass root level, the groups helped in detecting crimes, making arrests and forwarding suspects to the
police for necessary investigations and possible prosecution (Yusufari 2004). These
groups do not exist under one central organization, but were organized sector
by sector throughout essentially Kano city.
It is interesting that despite differences in religious
interpretation, orthodoxy has similar roots.
This is because of the existence of a similar organ within some Christian
believers, especially in the United
States. This is particularly reflected, for example, in the formation
of the New York Society for
the Prevention of Vice (SPV)—a sort of American Hisbah—in 1873 by Anthony Comstock and his
supporters in the Young Men’s Christian Association. The SPV was an institution dedicated to supervising the morality
of the public. Later that year,
Comstock successfully influenced the United States Congress to pass the
Comstock Law, which made illegal the
delivery or transportation of obscene, lewd, or lascivious material.
He lent his name to the term
comstockery, meaning “censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality”. Comstock’s ideas of what
might be “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” were quite broad.
During his time of greatest
power, even some anatomy textbooks were prohibited from being
sent to medical students by the United States Postal Service. Comstock aroused intense support from church based
groups worried about public morals
and equally intense loathing from early American civil liberties groups
(Gertzman 1999).
The Hisbah is essentially organized around safeguarding
the limits set by Islam from being violated,
protecting the honor of the people, and ensuring public safety. It also
includes monitoring
the marketplace, craftsmanship, and manufacturing concerns to make sure that
the laws
of Islam are upheld by these entities. It must also ensure that quality
standards are maintained. The Hisbah carries
out these responsibilities in conjunction with the appropriate government agencies and other relevant
establishments.
With Shari’a at the forefront
of everyone’s mind, and the Hisbah corps increasingly emboldened by a sense of religious
duty (or zeal)—which involved curtailing the gender-mix of many wedding ceremonies in Kano
city—the film industry in Kano halted any further youth gala festivals. The Hisbah thus rapidly emerged as the
moral guardians of the Islamic civil
society in Kano, with particular focus on the video films, especially between
March to December 2000. Before the various Hisbah groups in Kano finished
consolidating under the Hisbah Committee
their first assignment—preventing inter-gender mixing especially during
entertainment events—was the film industry and this was demonstrated
during the planned wedding “gala”
activities of the then most popular Hausa actress, Fati Mohammed (Sauran Kiris, Sangaya, Marainiya, Sartse, Mujadala, and literally dozens
of others). The gala event was
planned for 14th July 2001. The Hisbah, already having constituted themselves
into some form of “lord’s resistance
army” and in their hundreds, blocked the entrance to the venue where the event was to take place, chanting
the following song1:
Allahu Akbar Allah
is Great
Ba ma son a yi gala We won’t allow the gala to take place
In an ce za a yi If
they insist on doing it
1
Reproduced (and translated) from the report
of the event in Fim, August
2001 p. 24).
Ana gwabza arangama There will be a mightily clash Ina soja? Where are the soldiers?
Ina ‘yan sanda su ke? Where are the policemen? Su ma duk sun gudu! They have all run away!
SSS? SSS? (State
Security Service)
Sun gudu! They have run away!
Even though the organizers of the event had made arrangements for security with the Nigeria
Police, yet the religious coloration of the event was enough to make the
policemen present mere onlookers. Any
interference on their part might have escalated into a wider religious riot. The gala event was shifted to the
local army barracks for the following day. However, the army did not allow the event to take place there either,
despite initially agreeing. The reason
was security reports that came to them that the
Hisbah groups will attack the procession
after it has left the barracks. Thus in the interests of public peace, the
event was also canceled—it was
subsequently held in Kaduna whose implementation of Shari’a at the time
was still uncertain. The filmmakers were understandably furious
with this and took time out
to express their feelings to journalists. For example, Hajiya Amina “Yakumbo”
Garba, who often appears in Hausa video films as matriarch, argued:
We
are in a dark period. We have planned this gala to help us celebrate the
marriage of one of us, yet the Hisbah
corps have prevented us. Yet today we had a meeting of the PDP (People’s
Democratic Party, the then ruling
party in Kano) where men and women mixed in the audience, and no one prevented this. But because everyone hates
film stars, the Hisbah prevented us from doing our party. What do (the government) expect
us to do? Even in Makkah and Madina they have wedding
parties…” (Amina Garba in an interview with Kabir Assada,
Garkuwa, August
2001:15).
In interviews with international news agencies, the Hisbah defended
their actions. According to the Hisbah
Deputy Chairman, Suleiman
Mohammed,
“Islam
legitimizes celebrations which are exclusively organized for women or men. But
it prohibits mixed parties
of men and women…We have a legal right to stop anything
that will affect
the morals of our children
(Islam Online 2001).
Recognizing that these Hisbah groups must be regularized
if law and order were to be maintained and also aware
of the apparent reluctance of the Nigeria
Police Force in enforcing the Shari’a because they are Federal,
rather than State law enforcement officers, the Kano State Government
decided to establish its own, government-controlled Hisbah group. It therefore
constituted a committee—the Hisbah Committee, which was formally
inaugurated in November 2000
on the full implementation of the Shari’a in Kano State. The Committee was under the Chairmanship of Sheikh (Dr.) Aminuddeen Abubakar.
This brought the entire Hisbah groups under one central control
of Hisbah Corps. The rules and regulations of the Kano Hisbah committee list mainly religious duties, such as counseling and guiding Muslims
who are negligent in their religious duties or do not behave as a good
Muslim should. They are not authorized to deal with crime, except in co-operation with the Nigeria
Police. In order to
make them recognizable to the public, they wear a green uniform patterned
around that worn by the Police,
complete with a black beret.
It became clear later that the Hisbah in Kano was divided
into two loose groups. One, predominant
group is made up of former vigilante groups that metamorphosed into Hisbah, while another was made up of those same groups
who subjected themselves to regulation and control
under Hisbah Committee at the Shari’a implementation in November 2000. This became
apparent when Dr. Aminuddeen was accosted by journalists to explain the actions of the Hisbah in preventing
the Fati Mohammed wedding gala event of 14th July 2001. In an interview with Nishadi reporters held on the day of the event, he insisted he was
not even aware of what was then
happening, nor were any Hisbah personnel authorized to carry out any attack on any civil group (Nishadi, No 6, August 2001:17).
The relationship between the Hisbah and not just the film
industry, but also the civil society (and security
agencies) eventually settled
into a pattern of simmering mutual antagonism.
The Hisbah effect applies not only to the film industry but to the entire entertainment industry in Kano.
Subsequently the Hisbah as well as the newly established Shari’a Commission intervene
to prevent any festival of the arts in any part of the city in which it is perceived that there
will be mixed gender situations. Such festivals were then often held in offices
of cultural attaches of overseas
mission (e.g. Alliance Française with its festival of Hausa music) and British Council (with its
musical improvisations between a Hausa traditional music ensemble, Arewa, and a British Muslim rap group,
Mecca2Medina).
However, the presence
of Hisbah was much evident
in the public sphere of entertainment. Le Monde diplomatique reporter,
Jean-Christophe Servant (2001), provides an account of how Hisbah disrupted
a concert by the famous kalangu (hour-glass drum) musician, Sani Dan Indo at Central Hotel,
Kano in November 2002:
Sani
Dan Indo, a Hausa griot…makes his
money at concerts where the audience throws banknotes on the stage. He had his equipment destroyed by the Hisbah last summer when he was performing
at Kano’s Central Hotel. According to
the vigilantes, his crime was that he appeared on stage. He said: “I refused to hire an attorney because if I
complained, people would think I was mixing music and religion, they’d think I wasn’t a true believer. Even in Arab
countries like Saudi Arabia, I’ve never heard
of musicians being as badly mistreated as they are here. I’m all for Islamic
law. But the Hisbah were
only after my money.”
Musical festivals of the religious nature, however, such
as the concerts offered by Islamic poet-musicians
like Rabi’u Usman Baba were not only allowed, but encouraged as more acceptable alternatives of entertaining
youth, than the more transnational format favored by the film industry.
In Katsina, even before the Shari’a re-launch
, the Izalatul Bidi'a Wa Ikamatus
Sunna (Izala), a fundamentalist Muslim group, under the
leadership of Sheikh Yakubu Musa had been on
the forefront of advocacies for moral re-alignment of the civil society, especially in the public
sphere. For instance, on Friday 20th August 1999 the movement allegedly
lead a crusade in the State that
saw the destruction of beer parlors (popular alcohol drinking places) and dwellings
allegedly housing prostitutes (The News, Lagos, 31st August
1999).
The Shari’a law started working
on 1st August 2000, and an advisory
committee, the Shari’a
Commission was constituted. For instance, one of the functions of the
commission was to amend the penal
code and bring it into conformity with Islamic law. Such amendments included
the Commission passing
a fatwa (Islamic ruling) against
singing, dancing, drumming at any ceremony throughout the
State. Soon after the Shari’a launch, the issue of who should enforce
the Shari’a in the State became muddled.
Beside the Shari’a
Commission, there was also the Katsina State Joint Committee on the
Enforcement of the Shari’a
which by February 2001 had started challenging the Shari’a Commission as not being
in a position to enforce the Shari’a. And in the midst of this tangle, a
proto-type Hisbah emerged, carved out of the Izala movement. This created discord in the State especially
as there are three broad clusters of Muslim movements in
Katsina. These are the Shiite, the Tariqa (adherents of Sufi brotherhoods) and the Izala.
Although all strongly
Islamic, each of the
three has a unique way of interpreting and implementing Islamic injunctions.
Further, while the Tariqa is
dominated by the older members of the civil society, the Shiite is predominantly a youth oriented movement.
The Izala cuts across the generations, but its
approach to civil polity and constant clashes with civil authority makes
its approaches to Islamic policing
abhorrent to the other two, more or less pacifist, Islamic movements.
The constitution of the Izala Movement in Katsina did
provide for a da’awa (call to Islam) and ‘Yan Agaji (Aid
Group). The Movement
noted with keen interest that the Hisbah
in Kano spontaneously emerged out of the civil
society in the throes of Shari’a launch in June 2000, and was later backed by specific government policies. Thus
borrowing a leaf, the Izala Aid Group transformed itself into Katsina
Hisbah, and although
lacking any specific
government legislation, the Hisbah undertook the process of enforcement of the Shari’a
within the public
sphere in Katsina. However, although focusing on all aspects of moral
behavior—of both Muslims and
non-Muslims—their most widely-reported clashes was with the entertainment industry. Katsina does not have a
well-developed film industry as in Kano, so the clashes with Katsina Hisbah were with traditional musicians who
entertain guests during weddings. Again, as in Kano, the main reason for the
clashes were the gender-mix of wedding
ceremonies, rather than the actual concept of merriment itself. However, within a year, and wishing to dissociate itself
from the tag Hisbah, the Katsina Hisbah
transformed in Rundunar Adalci
(Army of Justice),
but continued the Hisbah’s task of moral policing in the State.
The continuing series of clashes between the Rundunar Adalci in Katsina and party
goers— essentially wedding
ceremonies which, understandably were entertained by traditional musicians—lead to the formation of Performing Artistes and Artisans Association (PAAA) in Katsina on 7th May 2001 by Bature Tanimu Gagare who became is Secretary-General. This was a gesture of defiance by a writer
whose critically acclaimed first—and only published— novel, {arshen Alewa {asa (1980) was a wake-up
call to the Muslim Hausa society about its injustices on the indigenous Hausa, the Maguzawa (see interview with Bature Tanimu Gagare
in Weekly Trust of Friday,
August 17, 2001). The clashes between the civil society and Rundunar
Adalci attracted the attention of the Katsina State Government and led to a
clear warning to the group that they
are not above the law. As stated by the Governor in a press conference,
“If
you see anybody committing an offence against the law, you have a civil
responsibility to arrest the person and hand him or her over to the police…when you take it upon yourself
to administer punishment or effect arrest
and take offender
to court for prosecution, then you are stepping beyond
the law and this not helping the system.” Report
in New Nigerian newspaper, Monday
4th June 2001 p. 1).
The statement reiterated the fact that the State
Government has not officially sanctioned the
activities of the Rundunar Adalci or
those of any group apart from the law enforcement agents. However, when it became clear that there will be a
continuing stand-off between performance
artistes and Rundunar Adalci, despite
the Government disowning the latter group publicly,
Bature Gagare as the Secretary General of PAAA of Katsina
decided to hold a
world press conference on the issue. Gagare’s protest was not so much against
the Shari’a itself, but against the strategies of its enforcement, and he made his Association’s views very clear
during the conference he convened on 27th June 2001 in which he stated,
“…utter doom had
befallen our trade since some clerics from the Izala sect declared our trade
i.e. singing, dancing, drumming un-Islamic, and illegal under
Shari’a law. Without
proper codification, definition and interpretation of such phantom
stature by the House of Assembly, the Shari’a Courts started to inflict
punishment against us, overzealous fanatics
started to attack us with physical violence, our patronage overnight evaporated because of fear. The over
all effect of this perversion was that our art
suffered, our economic fortune plummeted and our future shortened. (Bature
Tanimu Gagare, “We shall make Shari’a
inoperable in Katsina State unless the rights of the Artists to self-expression
is guaranteed”, being the text of a
Press Conference speech by the Performing Artistes and Artisans Association of Katsina State,
Katsina, 27th June 2001).
Gagare cited examples of such denial of artistic freedom
within the context of Rundunar Adalci’s interpretation of the implementation of Shari’a in the following case studies:
§
On 9th April 2001 the Izala activists
arraigned a popular Hausa musician, Alhaji Sirajo Mai Asharalle before the Katsina Shari’a Court. According to Weekly
Triumph of Saturday April 14th 2001,
the man and his group were ‘caught red-handed in the act of entertaining the
crowds with locally made instruments which is a violation of Shari’a’
Sirajo
Mai Asharalle was held in prison custody for seven days with a view to soften
his hard stance against what he
perceived as a denial of his right to practice his art. The court released him only after he signed a submission to stop his entertainment business
in the whole State
§
Another popular traditional violin player,
Alhaji Waziri Mai Kukuma was similarly arraigned and a written pledge
to stop his business was extracted from his under pains of incarceration were he to refuse (ibid)
§
On 2nd June 2001 a group of brutal maniacs
attacked and wounded Alhaji Ahmadu (Monkey) and his band of Kotso musicians at Dutsin-Ma during the occasion
of the wedding fatiha of the ex- governor
of Katsina State...The musician’s instruments were smashed by these zealots and
the Police later detained both parties on charges of public disturbances.
The threat given by the new Association was that unless
the decision to rescind the ban on performing
arts in the State, as well as the cessation of incessant harassment of
performing artistes in the State
are made,
We
shall therefore no longer tolerate the violation of our rights as guaranteed in
Chapter iv Section 39 of the Federal
Constitution. We shall fight any group or government that strives to deny us
the means of earning our livelihood
through a legitimate enterprise, a natural talent sanctioned by God and the Nigerian constitution. From this day
hence, we have promised to make the operation of Shari’a in Katsina
State very difficult or impossible, until our right to self-expression is fully restored. (ibid).
Right about the same time the leadership of the Rundunar Adalci—which attracted international attention particularly with regards
to how it prevents musicians from playing in Katsina,
gave an interview on BBC Hausa Service on 30th June 2001 in which the leader of the group defended the activities of the
group by insisting his on his understanding that the Shari’a law does not recognize
a Police force,
and that they will continue
with their task.
The threats of further public
disturbance between the Rundunar
Adalci and PAAA of Katsina
seemed to have created a re-think on the ban on music
and entertainment in the State because on Tuesday 7th August 2001, the Katsina
State Shari’a Commission called for a press conference
in which the Chairman of the Commission Alhaji Aminu Ibrahim informed journalists that
“…the
Commission directed that singing and drumming were desirable at wedding, Id
prayers and circumcision ceremonies,
and could also take place during wars or while welcoming a fellow Moslem from a trip…(the) body considered it necessary to wade into the ensuing
controversy in order to lay the matter
to rest…the commission had conducted a deep research
into Islamic books and came up with the conclusion that the two performances
were legal at the occasions listed but explained that the musical instruments should not be used to abuse or slight anybody.”
(The Guardian (Lagos) 10th August 2001).
In the meantime,
the Izala Movement itself imploded on 8th October 2001 when the Executive
Council of Katsina
State branch of the Izala was dissolved by the Chairman
of the Board of Trustees of the Izala, Alhaji Sanda Kaita, who
accused the deposed leadership of steering the organization off its designated mandate in addition
to failure to move it forward. According to the news report,
“Specifically, the Trustees Chairman
accused the erstwhile
leadership of pitching
the religious organisation in a perpetual war of
attrition with those in authority notably the state government saying that such a course of action is
diametrically opposed to the injunctions of Allah and the practices of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) which enjoin
respect and obedience to those in authority…He said the introduction of “Hizba”
which acts as the enforcement agency of the Izala movement
replacing the Aid Group
(Yan Agaji) was a contravention of the Izala's constitution as there is no
provision for or mention of the
“Hizba” but only the Aid Group in the constitution.” Daily Trust, 9th October 2001 online edition.
This was a pointed reference to the illegality of the Rundunar Adalci which had hitherto sought cover under the broad umbrella of
the Izala Movement in Katsina State. With this
development, the Rundunar Adalci was officially disowned by both the
Government and its parent
organization. If anything this development demonstrates the need for dialogue
in understanding the role of entertainment in an Islamic
polity.
The Muslim Female Body Form in the Male Public Gaze
Thus a contentious issue in the discourses in Muslim
societies deals with the degree of visibility of the female
form in the public sphere – and subsequently, the subjectivities of the ‘male
gaze’. It is this subjectedness to the gaze that Islam prohibits with strict dress codes for the female
body form in the public
sphere. This is to avoid the ‘male gaze’.
The concept of the male gaze was brought to the fore by Laura Mulvey (who argued that the cinematic apparatus of classical
Hollywood cinema inevitably put the spectator
in a masculine subject position,
with the figure of the woman on screen as the object
of desire and "the
male gaze." In the era of classical Hollywood cinema, viewers were
encouraged to identify with the
protagonist of the film, who were and still are overwhelmingly male. Meanwhile, Hollywood women characters of the 1950s
and '60s were, according to Mulvey, coded
with "to-be-looked-at-ness" while the camera positioning and the male viewer constituted the "bearer of the look." Mulvey suggests two distinct modes of the male gaze of this era: "voyeuristic" (i.e.
seeing woman as image "to be looked at") and "fetishistic"
(i.e. seeing woman as a substitute for "the lack," the underlying psychoanalytic fear of castration).
Laura Mulvey did not undertake empirical
studies of actual filmgoers, but declared her intention to make ‘political use’ of Freudian
psychoanalytic theory (in a version
influenced by Jacques
Lacan) using the agency of cinematic spectatorship. Such psychoanalytically- inspired
studies of 'spectatorship' focus on how 'subject positions' are constructed by media texts rather than investigating the
viewing practices of individuals in specific social contexts. Mulvey notes that Freud had referred to (infantile)
scopophilia - the pleasure
involved in looking at other people’s bodies as
(particularly, erotic) objects. In the darkness of the cinema auditorium—or the context of private viewership at home—it is notable that one may look without
being seen either
by those on screen by other members
of the audience.
The concept of the gaze therefore deals
with how an audience views those represented either on the screen or
on stage in the theater.
Feminist arguments break down this gaze into three perspectives
– how men look at women, how women look at themselves, and how women look at other women.
In projecting the woman on a screen (as in a film), the
camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and the subsequent events are presented largely in the context of male reaction
to these events. The female herself, relegated to the status of an
object, experiences the narration by
identifying with the male. As Schroeder (1998: 208) noted, “to gaze implies more than to look at – it signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object
of the gaze.”
Veiling the Faith, Unveiling the Body
Taking the Mulvian ‘male gaze’ notion higher, contemporary
notions of feminist liberalism among
Muslim women, both living in the West and those with attachment to the West,
has created new form of expressive
visibility for the Muslim woman. In Islam the first point of vibility of the female form is her physical appearance as reflected in her clothing
choices. The standard components of Islamic clothing
requirements for women are a head covering and
loose-fitting, non-transparent clothing
that covers the whole body, maybe with the exception
of the hands and face. Cultures differ in their
implementation of these basic requirement. For instance, in Egypt, Muslim
‘women wear full-length gallabiyyas (jilbab in
standard Arabic), loose-fitting to conceal
body contours, in solid austere
colours made out of opaque
fabric’ (El Guindi 1999:143). Malaysian women wear a
Malay dress with long skirt, long sleeves and
tight neck, with the head covered with a scarf or headress, the mini-telekung’ (Lie 2000:33), or to wear ‘loose-fitting long tunics over sarongs’ (Ong 1990:261).
Thus while traditions across the Muslim world varies, a
general social binding force of female
presence in the public sphere is the physical boundary between her features as
a female and the appearance of those
features to general public. The hijab, a covering of the head, although allowing the face to be seen, becomes a common
symbol of identity for the Muslim
woman, regardless of her race. Increasingly liberalization of Islamic
identities, particularly for Muslim
women living in the West, or living with the West, has created new contexts of visibility of the Muslim
woman either living
the West or in engagement with the West. These new visibilities were
expressed within the platform of adherence to the core concept of Islamic ‘tauheed’ (oneness of God) despite their
seeming contradictory stance. There
are four case studies of Muslim women who attempt to redefine the very notion
of female visibility by substracting the body invisibility.
Golshifteh Farahani Madame Le Figaro January 12, 2012
In her recent interview with Madame - a magazine supplement to the French newspaper Le Figaro, covering
fashion and feminist
topics - Golshifteh Farahani says she decided to leave Iran the day the Iranian Ministry of
Islamic Guidance banned her from leaving Iran to audition for a film in London: "Iranian authorities did not like my acting in the Ridley Scott's Body of Lies. I was condemned for not
wearing Hijab on the screen and being part of an American production." She used the first opportunity to
escape, taking advantage of a loophole in Iran's border
control system. Further,
as she stated:
"If
you wanted to swim naked, you entered the water fully dressed and then
undressed once you are submerged.
I've done that a hundred times. I just needed a friend to bring me dry
clothes... And Hijab? Just wear it
but it does not hide all the hair. It also sometimes falls! It is a traditional
costume for many women like me who
are not believers. I know it is difficult to understand. My country is full of contradictions…I could have stayed but I would not have been allowed to work the way I wanted. When a regime asks an actress to hide her hair and body, I think she should leave." (Farahani 2013, par. 4).
What makes it easier to accept Farahani’s explanation is her alluded statement that she is not a ‘believer’. Having removed herself from
the fundamental tenets of Islam then gives her
greater leeway to behave in anyway she deems fit.
Golshifteh Farahani, an Iranian actress whose nude photos
were published in a magazine called
Madame Le Figaro, has been banned from entering her native country, following a decision by the Iranian government.
Farahani, who played a pivotal role in the Hollywood film “Body of Lies”, opposite Leonardo Di Caprio, was then also
condemned by the Iranian regime for violating Islamic
law by appearing without a hijab in a few scenes.
Meanwhile, Farahani was already living outside of Iran;
she left the country to protect the strict
rules mandated by Islamic law and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Iranian cinema.
Veena Malik, born Zahida Malik, is a Pakistani
actress, model, singer,
and comedienne. Over
a span of ten years, she has worked with news serials and films. In
2011, Malik crossed the border from
Pakistan to India and took part in a nude shoot for December 2011 edition of FHM India magazine.
Crossing over the border to a country
in virtual perpetual
war with her own
was nothing new—as she had collaborated in a few projects with Indian
filmmakers. Appearing nude, in a
popular magazine oriented at male audience, however, is new on two fronts. Not only was the first for a
Pakistani female, it was the first public display of nudity by a woman who professes Islam. While
defending her roles in the Indian entertainment media, Malik insisted that she was an entertainer. In a heated
debate with a Muslim clerific broadcast live on Pakistani TV, she reversed
the moral compass
of the argument by insisting
the public Shari’a
should focus on more fundamental issues of good goverance and personal accountability, rather than picking on
Veena Malik because she is a ‘soft target’. The controvery of her appearance nude – which denied, since her hand covered her breasts in the picture – trailed her and raised the
issue of public visibility of women in one of the most fundamentalist Islamic states
in Asia.
From the UK, Saeeda Vorajee
aka Sahara Knite rapidly established herself as the first openly
Muslim female pornographic star – casting
a whole new perspective on ‘visibility’. Although
a British citizen,
she has Indian roots, being brought up by strict
parents from the Indian State of
Gujarat. In her formative years whe conformed to public visibility of the female
form by wearing the hijab in
conformity to both Islam and family traditions. While no particular reason was given for her involvement in
the pornographic industry, which she kept away
from her strict
parents, it was ironically her cousin who noticed her while he was watching
a UK porn chanel – and
Sahara’s parents were informed. They subsequently disowned her. Despite her colorful choice of career,
Sahra maintains she is deeply Islamic, reading the Qur’an and praying
regularly.
The final female Muslim seeking to reinterpret the concept
of visibility within the Islamic fold is
Islam
has made it obligatory on Muslim to cover their private parts, which everyone
naturally feels a sense of shame at
exposing, in order that they may be distinguished from the naked animals; in
fact it instructs them to avoid
uncovering these parts of their bodis eventhey are alone so that they may
attain perfection in morals and religion. Al-Qadarawi. P. 77
In all these cases, Muslim women attemt to radically
redefine their perception of Islamic rules
concerning the visibility of the female. In all the interviews each gave
concerning her new interpretation of
the visibility of the female body form in the public sphere, none was able to cite an Islamic basis for her
action—except to reaffirm to reaffirm the ownership of her body and in some cases, still reaffirm their faith in Islam.
These Muslim women therefore offer a whole new perspective
on the gaze in the public sphere.
With the exception of the Iranian Farahani who openly declared her ‘unbeliever’ status (or at least aligned
herself with Iranian
‘unbelievers’) the rest cling to the veil of Islam
as professed identity and platform of their faith. Disconnecting their
body from their faith seems to provide them residency in a parallel
world in which
‘iman’ (Islamic faith)
does not seem to clash with the display of their
‘awrah’ (nakedness). This means they are attempting to reinterprete the Islamic visbility
rules—a task for which Islamic
scholars would argue they are not in a position to do so; for to
reject or revise a rule requires understanding and accepting its context
in the first place and providing a more acceptable alternative.
Veiling the Voice
Female visibility in Islam, however,
is not restricted only to the body form – it also includes the voice; for the voice is a component
of the body. However, whereas the visibile female body form sets out to satisfy the male gaze, there are
ambivalent interpretations of the same function
regarding the female voice. This is because there are two forms of the voice.
The first is conversational tone,
while the other was the sexualized expression of the voice in musical perforamnces.
Subsequently, the ruling on appearance before a mahram for a Muslim woman applies
not only to her body, but also to her voice. As Al-Qadarawi stated”
An Islamic
principle is that if something
is prohibited, anything
which leads to it is likewise prohibited. By this it means Islam intends to block all avenues to what is
haram (prohibited). For example, as Islam has prohibited sex outside marriage,
it has also prohibited anything which leads to it or makes it attractive, such as seductive clothing, private meetings
and casual mixing between men and women, the depiction of nudity, pornographic literature, obscene songs and so on.
(Al-Qaradawi 1995, 28, emphasis added)
The inclusion of female voice as part of repertoire of
prohibited performance is in fact derived from a Qur’anic
verse:
O
Consorts of the Prophet! Ye are not like any of the (other) women: if ye do
fear (Allah), be not too complacent
of speech, lest one in whose heart is a disease should be moved with desire:
but speak ye a speech (that is) just (Surat
Al-Ahzab: 32).
This verse is interpreted by Muslim scholars to mean that
men and women should not talk unnecessarily
and when they do so, both the content and manner of conversation must be appropriate, and free of anything
inciting. This interpretation extends even to religious narrative. The Hanbali scholars – one of the four juristic
schools of Islam2 – do not allow women to recite the call to the prayer
in public. Indeed
other Islamic commentators recorded that after
the revelation of this verse,
when the need arose for women to converse with a non-
Mahram male, they would do so by placing their hands over
their mouths. This was to prevent any
softness or incitement in their voices. Further, the Hanafi scholar Imam Abu Bakr al-Jassas says in his Ahkam al-Qur’an:
2
For more on Islamic
schools of jurisprudence, see Weeramantry (1988)
and Motzki (2002).
“This
verse (above-mentioned) indicates the impermissibility of women raising their
voices in the presence of non-Mahram
males, as this may lead to Fitna. This is why our (Hanafi) scholars have declared the reciting of Adhan for women
as Makruh, as she will need to raise her voice, which is not permissible.” (Ahkam al-Qur’an, 5/229; Adam 2004, par 12)
Similarly, Allama Murtadha al-Zabidi, the Hanafi Sufi and linguistic writes in his commentary of the Ihya of Imam al-Ghazali, Ithaf al-Sadat
al-Muttaqin:
“A group of Scholars
have distinguished between the singing of males and females. Listening to the singing
of non-Mahram women has been declared by them as Haram, and the listening
to the singing of Mahram women is deferred upon. Qadi Abu
Tayyib al-Tabari said: If the singer is a non-Mahram female, then it will not be permissible for men to listen to
her. This ruling will apply, regardless of whether the woman is with or without Hijab.”
(Vol: 6, P: 501; Adam 2004, par 16)
The female voice, according to the the Hanafi School, is
not considered to be part of her nakedness (awrah).
However, if there is a fear of Fitna then, the female
should not raise
it and the male should avoid listening to it. The point of contention
is the timbre and pitch of the voice – it must not be done in any alluring manner which might lead to sexualized thoughts. However, a
different interpretation is given by Ibn Humam, another Hanafi scholar, who states in his 'Fath al-Qadir', quoting
from 'al-Nawazil':
“The melodious
voice of a female and her singing
will be considered as Awra. This is the reason
why it is better for her to learn the Qur’an from a female teacher
rather than a male who is blind, as her recitation
in tune is Awra. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: “The
reciting of Tasbih is for men and
clapping is for women.” (meaning if the Imam makes a mistake in Salat , the males will invite his attention by
reciting Subhan Allah and women, by clapping their hands). (Fath al- Qadir,
1/260; Adam 2004, par 21)
Imam Ibn Abidin,
after quoting the same from al-Nawazil writes in Radd al-Muhtar:
“It
is permissible for women to converse with non-Mahram men at the time of need
(and visa versa). However, what is
not permissible is that they stretch, soften and raise their voice in a
melodious way.” (Radd al-Muhtar, 1/406;
Adam 2004, par 23).
Thus according to some jurists
of Islam, a woman’s voice
is not necessarily part of what can be
considered her ‘nakedness’. However, the form and delivery of her voice can
lead to thoughts that Islam consider
‘indecent’. Subsequently, the female voice remains veiled.
This presents a challenge to
the participation of women in public Islam, and is illustrated by the case of female muezzins—those who call the
Muslim faithful to prayer at the appointed times—from Bahrain.
The Muslim call to prayer has traditionally been done by
men. The schools of Islamic jurisprudence
concur that the conditions for the validity of adhan (the call to prayer) are: maintaining
continuity of its recital and the sequence of its different parts, and that the mu'adhdhin
(the person calling the prayer) be a sane Muslim man. This automatically disqualifies women from issuing
out the call to the prayer for at least
two additional reasons.
The first was the sonic quality of the call to the prayer – which invokes
the prohibition of the woman raising her voice in public.
Secondly, the act of its publicity makes the audience of the call to the prayer non-Mahram to the caller.
This interpretation, however, applies only to Sunni
schools of jursiprudence. The Shi’a, a second
denomination of Islam3 have a totally different understanding of the
role of female voice in the public
sphere. This was the interpretation given by Shi’a Islamic jurists in Bahrain when on 2nd November 2009 when the
Bahraini Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs
granted three muezzins permission to call to the prayer in two different
mosques in Bahrain. This caused a
furor in the Bahraini parliament where it was revealed that the three women working as muezzins in the mosques
belong to the Ja’afariyah (Twelvers) Shi’a group. The first female muezzin was Mariam Hasan Ali. She worked at the Shaykh
Muhammad Mu`min Mosque, which was one of the large mosques of the
capital, Manama. The other two
muezzin were Fawziyah Ali Hasan Rustum and Salwa Ahmad Sultan. They work at the Shaykh Darwish Mosque, in the
area of Al-Diyah, near Al-Badi district, also in the capital Manama. Reacting to this, a Bahraini Islamic scholar
was noted as argued that such a development
is a
dangerous, reprehensible innovation that no one in the world introduced before
us. All the Islamic doctrines
agree that it is impermissible for a woman to occupy
this post, and therefore the question is: How dare the Ja`fariyah Religious Endowments Administration employ three women as muezzin?
And, does the Imamate Shiite
jurisprudence authorize women to perform the function of muezzin? How
come that these women have continued to receive their salaries all throughout the previous period
of time? This proves that there is clear administrative corruption at
the Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs,
and the minister is politically responsible for this.” (Dossari 2009, par 11).
In Egypt similar furor was almost created, although
avoided, by attempts to get women to recite
the Qur’an in public. This again raised the arguments of non-Mahram males in
the audience and created condemnation
from scholars of Al-Azhar University, whose regular judgements on Islamic
matters confer a Sunni authority on their rulings.
According to one of them,
"Such calls echo
a Western agenda," said Mohammad Al Barri, a cleric at Al Azhar, Sunni
Islam's influential seat of learning.
"There is no clear text in the Quran or the Prophet Mohammad's [PBUH] sunna [traditions and sayings] that women
recited the Holy Quran in front of men. Should this happen, there would be a big sedition, which we
should avoid by all means… Letting a woman read in front of men would tempt them, thereby earning
her and them God's wrath instead of His contentment."" (Al Sherbini
2010, par 2).
Thus despite the immense significance of learning and reciting the Qur’an for all Muslims,
a Muslim female would not
recite it infront of non-Mahram males, although she could recite it—and also issue call to prayer and lead the prayer—to an all-female audience.
Subversion and Religiosity in Hausa Female Public Performances
My discussion so far has created a closed circle and
preculsion of female Muslim public performances—in any form: whether religious or secular. The availability of as much as eight different schools
of jurisprudence in Islam, however,
provides rooms for alternative interpration on at least basic structures
of what Islamc considers decency in female Muslim public visibility. Thus while H
3
For more on historical development of Shi’a Islam, see Jafri (1999).
While applicable to most male-dominated communities, in
Islamic communities women are considered
more enticing—at least outwardly—than men; with the male gaze perceiving a more powerful sensual stimulus from the
female body than from her voice. This, therefore, has consequences in the way women perform
in public—with sensuality of the performance being the main criteria of determining the motive of the
performance. As Nieuwkerk (1995, 12) pointed
out,
The
fact that excitement is most strongly aroused by the eye rather than by the ear
also affects the various categories
of female performers. Female musicians are mainly listened to; female singers
are both listened to and, at least at present,
observed; while female
dancers are solely
eye-catchers. Female dancing is accordingly considered the
most shameful form of entertainment. Yet if female dancing is performed in front of a female audience
and no temptation is feared and the performance is in keeping with the limits
of proper time, place, and company, it is probably
permissible.
Islamic scholars in Kano studiously refuse to be drawn
into the permissibility of public performance
of women in the popular arts. Yet, and significantly, more than half of the musicial performances in Kano and Hausa
popular culture is performed by women—from behind microphones and studios; thus hiding their
vocal as well as body expressive visibility. The furor generated by Muslim women dressing in Western
clothing and dancing sensually on the
screen in Hausa video films created a prohibition of stage public stage
performances for women.
Consequently, women do not perform
in clubs, theaters
or concert halls.
This does not, however, include participation in closed
‘female only’ groups, with either mahram
males or male preteens. Thus a common form of Hausa women’s visibility is in ceremonies in which popular singers of
either the traditional or modern musical genres are invited to sing and dance before women. This, in fact, is done
right in the palace of the Emir—usually seen as a custodian of Hausa religious
culture.
The creation of song
and dance subtexts—fashioned along Hindi film structure—enabled a viable music industry and a new genre of
Hausa music referred to as Nanaye.
Its distinct feature is the male and
female call-and-response narrative strucure of the lyrics. Thus while remaining invisible, the consistency of the lyrical
delivery of the female portion
of the songs in Hausa video
films give Hausa women entertainers a higher aural profile than visibile. When the Hausa video films became
extremely popular especially for Hausa women in purdah, women then moved to the center
stage of the entertainment process
by subverting the ‘moral
police’ through release of what came to be termed ‘video albums’. Thus while
not participating in the visibile
public sphere of concert arena,
Hausa women use their voices as a form of engagement with public culture.
Thus releasing ‘video albums’ became one way of subverting Islamic criticism about female performance in public space and to
non-Mahram males. Within this context, the popular culture industries devised two additional subvertive strategies to encounter public
criticism of alluring female voices.
The first was overwhelming focus on what I call Hausa
Muslim Gospel song repertoires. When criticism
about video film industry singing and dancing threatned female performances in popular culture,
the women slowly steered their singing to praishing the Prophet Muhammad.
This immediately neutralized any public opposition to the visibility of a female
voice in the public sphere—for no one wants to be accused of not liking
songs praising the Prophet. This therefore gives the women immense opportunity to not only play with varieties of vocal
ranges and delivery, but to also branch out into moral-themed lyrics which are derivatives of the songs of the Prophet.
Conclusion
In Muslim Hausa societies, as in Middle Eastern societies,
the participation of women in public affairs
is governed by two layers.
The first layer refers to their biological bodies which in Islam is al’aura (intimisphäre), including their voices.
When going abroad,
such intimisphäre should be well covered,
although with a varying degree
of interpretations of the extent
of the coverage of the body acre across the Muslim world.
The second layer of female
space is her virtual lair, or inner apartment (hujrat), which again is not a public space and is non-representational in any form. The
transgressions of these space boundaries in Hausa popular culture, using newly acquired media technologies, seemed
to have created a tension between
media globalization and tradition in Muslim cultures in which the distinctions between
the private and public visibilities of female forms are increasingly blurred.
As Talal Asad (2003) pointed out, the terms “public” and
“private” form a basic pair of categories in modern liberal
society. It is central to the law, and crucial
to the ways in which
liberties are protected. These modern categories are integral to Western capitalist society, and they have a history that is coterminous with it. A central meaning
of “private” has to do with private property, while “public” space
is essentially one that depends on the presence of depersonalized state authority.
Further introduced by Hanna Papanek
(1973) and Cynthia
Nelson (1974) to place a sociological ground under discussions of honor and shame in traditional settings,
the public/private distinction opened up the private world of sentiment
and expression, particularly women’s, but to the relative
neglect of the public sphere that new media make increasingly permeable to the circulation of messages from more
restricted realms, diluting and in some cases challenging the authority to represent.
What demarcates the public from the private undoubtedly
depends on a complex set of cultural,
political, and economic factors, and as a result of the interaction between
such factors the line of demarcation
inevitably has had to shift. From among the cultural factors, religion stands out as one of the most
decisive components in delimiting the two spheres. Religions distinctly recognize and sanction a sphere of private
action for individuals. In Western
religions—that is, the Abrahamic traditions—human identity and individuality
are emphasized through the recognition and sanctioning of private life (Kadivar, 2003).
Thus it is significant that the categories of the public
and private derived from Western discourse
often mean different things. Discussing Islamic discourse in the Arab context, Nazih Ayubi (1995) has argued that public
space or the public sphere is not conventionally equivalent to the political civic realm of public debate,
conscious collective action, and citizenship
as understood in Western democratic theory. Rather, Islamic authorities have historically interpreted the public not in
contrast to a “free” privatized realm of conscience and religion, but instead as the space for “symbolic display, of interaction rituals and personal
ties, of physical
proximity coexisting with social distance”
in contrast to a private
sphere that is in effect
defined as a residual—what is left over after the public is defined. For Tajbakhsh (2003), the public sphere is above all a
space for the “collective enforcement of public morals” rather than necessarily political.
Similarly, Jon W. Anderson (2003) has argued that for well
over a generation, the public sphere
of Islam has been an arena of contest in which activists and militants brought
forth challenges to traditional interpretative practices and authority to speak for Islam, especially to articulate its
social interests and political agendas. Further, as Gaffney (1994) also noted
in analyzing Islamic preaching in
Egypt, opening the social field to new spokespeople—in our case,
Hausa female singers—and new discursive practices
not only challenges authority long since thought settled to interpret what
religion requires, but also blurs boundaries between public and private
discourse and fosters
new habits of production.
It is thus clear that a battle line has been drawn between the traditional Islamicate environment in northern
Nigerian Hausa Muslim
communities and purveyors of new popular
culture with a focus on commercial and more “modern” appeal on their
craft. The fact that there is so much
resistance—focused not on the industries themselves, but the public space sexualization of the sanctity of the
female in a Muslim society, and which the merchants of popular culture see as representing modernity—sex as a template
for freedom from the shackles of a traditional society—indicates a very challenging development for the future
of Muslim Hausa popular culture.
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