We had the honour of hosting Shaikh Muzzammil al-Nadwi, to discuss the translation of Views on Womanhood, co-translated by Junayd Greer. This event was chaired by Talha Ahsan. Purchase Views on Womanhood from the IHRC Bookshop.
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The discussion has been edited for better readability.
Shaikh Muzzammil al-Nadwi began with reading an excerpt from the introduction, from Shaykh Sabri’s words: ‘The reality is that westerners and those that among us that follow them, only follow their idle desires in worshipping women. Modern man’s exaltation of the woman and its promotion to her over himself is nothing but false flattery, intended to deceive her and make her a vessel of petty amusement and play.’
Talha: You talk about tradition and modernity: one has become insular and the other is to assimilate without any critique and you seem to see Sabri as having an achieved a balance. What do you understand this balance to be in this perennial problem between tradition and modernity?
Sh Muzzammil: There are obviously multiple approaches taken to address modernity and the changing of times, which has always been the case. Some people choose to retreat, some people choose to integrate and change themselves; there is a spectrum. I am not questioning anyone’s intention, everybody has good intentions in what they do; there were of course Muslim scholars at the turn of modernity and the 20th century, who did find it to be the best approach to remove themselves from society in order to preserve the tradition as it was. They saw colonialism at the hands of the British and the French, etc. was really pervasive and detrimental to society and they sought to be reclusive in order to preserve themselves from that fitna. They did so with good reason; they did not completely seclude themselves from society forever, rather it was until it had passed. The opposite was also true, you had people with good intentions seeing times changing and they were studying in France, the US or England and they were bringing a lot of ideas. Many thinkers adapted this idea that they were going to integrate. Unfortunately, a lot of the times, you lose yourself within that sea of trying to find that balance.
All of these thinkers are very critical so, the third trend you find in this spectrum are those that chose to engage with modernity. Sabri for example, lived in France and Romania and other European countries and became familiar with their traditions, culture, and ideas; he went to the Vatican and petitioned for Muslims and Christians to work together. What happens in the Muslim space is that you lose sight of this existing tradition in the middle, of scholars who were very well versed in different thoughts. Sabri was very well-versed in enlightenment philosophy and engaged with other thinkers at the time in the field yet at the same time was faithful to the tradition. Muslim scholarship dealt with this; they were not reclusive. If Muslim scholarship is truly reflective of the inheritance of the Prophet SAW, the Prophet dealt with their socieities and the problems the societies faced.
Talha: Do you think everything [Sabri] says regarding tradition and modernity is relevant to our circumstances? As an Imam, you deal with issues such as divorce, you see what is happening on the ground, so I am interested in hearing about how you see some of the ideas playing out in real time and how relevant it is. For example: could Sabri have anticipated how hijab has been understood by some women today, for instance wearing it as a decolonial and political statement? How would that have made sense to him?
Sh Muzzammil: Human psychology is similar, there are certain trends that are pervasive… and there is going to be a lot of overlap. You can read thinkers from a long time ago and find relevance in the modern world and discourses. Sabri is very insightful to the changing times and how that will affect people in 20, 50, 100 years. Many trends he sees and responds to are very relevant today.
Egypt is very interesting case study for the Muslim world; it is not generally reflective of most other Muslim nations. When a state is established, one of the things they generally do – either built within it or utilise it – is that a state is usually tied to an ideology so you have some states built on an ideology or built seeking power or revolution that reflects their values. You find that true for most Muslim states within the spectrum of the maddhaahib: South Asia is Hanafi, West Africa is Maliki, etc. Egypt – hanks to the malik – they were the first state to establish all four madhaahib in one place; there was the traditional state maddhab and all four schools were represented in the lower courts. They figured out how [all four schools could] coexist in many ways. Colonialism struck Egypt quite harshly, but they had a mixing of ideas from before that was part of the nature of the society at the time. When you find colonialism taking place, you find it very easy for Egyptians to receive news ideas and accommodate within them. The scholars themselves would study and spend time in France and elsewhere, so they are very receptive of different ideas. That kind of climate is the one in which Sabri was living in and responding to. In a climate like that, it is easy to find trends play out in bigger ways, so, there is a lot of relevance to Egyptian society that we not only find in the post-modern world.
Specifically with regards to Sabri speaking about women who wear hijab and physically put on the headscarf but do not necessarily reflect their values, he does not explicitly speak about that anywhere. Hijab as a tool for revolting against the colonisation of the Muslim world is a unique trend that has developed recently.
Talha: We are not in a Muslim country, our parents came here as immigrants so our dynamics are different to that of Sabri and his opponents. How do you try to negotiate and figure out of the questions Sabri is exploring in our context. For example, hijab is a decolonial symbol and increasingly now, women are studying and working more… women are studying Arabic in institutes but they cannot go back to that same institute to teach Arabic because it is considered taboo.
Sh Muzzammil: Sabri does speak about this – when he speaks about hijab, the idea he presents is that the idea of the hijab is a very strong and potent force for women’s empowerment in the way that Islam seeks for them. He speaks about men: he mentions on page 85, speaking about a man that is seduced by the idea of a woman that he is introduced to; she was wearing the hijab and was protected and he got to know very little about her. The relationhip did not work out and he was heartbroken as a result, despite spending years in the UK, studying and learning. He is asks a columnist from a newspaper he reads about how to deal with this heartbreak. The columnist tells him that there are women that are your colleagues, there are women similar to you and who are far more compatible; he told him not to worry about this woman in Alexandria, assuring him that she is not somebody you would find compatibility with. Sabri saw something very interesting in this, he said: ‘a woman who has never heard of the cinema and is bewildered at how respectable women go out uncovered, all while being from Alexandria, living there and having yet to even see the beach, is this not the magic of the hijab? Of course. It is this hijab which has made her seem like an angelic life to him. The uncovered beauties did not fill his eyes, instead the hijab made him consider them to be disgraceful by comparison.’
He goes on to speak about the potency of the hijab and what is reflects in terms of the dignity of a woman and her value as a human being in general. The veil is tied to the power the woman possesses herself; who she chooses to share herself with, share that power she has and her physical beauty with. I think the idea of hijab being empowering in this context of sisters who choose to utilise the hijab as a response to colonialism that sought to almost subjugate them by having them remove their veil and give up their power to the public sphere without them having a say in that matter, I think Sabri would agree with that and say that this is a wonderful trend that women are taking power back for themselves. They just have to remember that Allah gave them that power – that disconnect cannot exist. That power was given to you by Allah and [that power] should be utilised in a way that is pleasing to Allah.
Other topics discussed include the way Sabri writes and his unique prose, femininity and masculinity, colonialism, imaan, oppression by Muslim men, polygamy, and much more. The main interview with Talha was followed by a Q&A.
