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Zinā and Gender (In)Equality in Ismāʿīlī Druze Law
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Wissam H. Halawi
Published/Copyright:
October 11, 2022
Abstract
In the 5th/11th century in Cairo, Imam Ḥamza, the founder of the Druze faith, abrogated the entire substantive laws, including the Islamic one. And yet, four centuries later, Druze jurists in the mountainous regions of Syria developed their own legal doctrine. This essay explores the evolution of Druzism from an esoteric doctrine according to the Ismāʿīlī vision to a madhhab (doctrinal school of law) using the prism of gender (in)equality. Through a close reading of the Imam’s epistles in the Ḥikma (i.e., the Druze canon of scripture) and Druze law treatises from the 9th/15th century, I show how premodern Druze jurists were influenced particularly by Shāfiʿī and Mālikī law. Although they remained faithful to the strict gender equality articulated in their sacred book, Druze jurists established a gender hierarchy in marriage and permitted wife beating based on Q 4:34. They however expounded an original doctrine of zinā (adultery): despite their construction of femininity as inferior and irrational, and their assumption of women’s intellectual deficiency, Druze jurists considered nonconsensual marriage as well as nonconsensual sex in marriage to be crimes of zinā. I argue that Druze jurists developed rules that enforced sexual equality but simultaneously conformed to their patriarchal vision of society to maintain the social cohesion of their religious community, clans, and extended families, all of which provided local networks for informal conflict resolution.
Online erschienen: 2022-10-11
Erschienen im Druck: 2022-10-06
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Keywords for this article
Gender Studies;
Islamic law;
Islamic ethics;
Shiʿism;
Ismailism;
Q 4:34;
zinā;
musāwāt
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Heinz Gaube (1940–2022)
- Articles
- Circumcision in Early Islam
- Le dossier du Patrice Grégoire dans les sources arabes
- Vers une nouvelle méthode de datation du hadith: les invocations à Dieu dans les inscriptions épigraphiques et dans la sunna
- Ṣalāt al-Niṣf min Rajab: A Shīʿī Tradition Preserved on Paper
- “Al-Raqqa, Namely Kalne” – Testimonies from the Cairo Geniza
- “Personal Opinion” in Qurʾānic Exegesis: Medieval Debates and Interpretations of al-Tafsīr bi-l-Raʾy
- Zinā and Gender (In)Equality in Ismāʿīlī Druze Law
- The Conquests of Adrianople by the Turks: Reflections on the Ottoman Expansion in Thrace
- Reviews
- Bibliography “Arabic Papyrology and Documentary Studies on the Mediterranean and the Islamicate World”
- Angelika Brodersen, Zwischen Māturīdīya und Ašʿarīya. Abū Šakūr as-Sālimī und sein Tamhīd fī bayān at-tauḥīd, Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2018, 107 S. deutsch, 400 S. arabisch, (Islamic Theory and Thought 14), ISBN 978-1-4632-3941-1.
- Stephen Frederic Dale, The Orange Trees of Marrakesh. Ibn Khaldun and the Science of Man, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 2015, xv + 383 pp., ISBN 978-0-674-96765-6.
- Gottfried Hagen and Robert Dankoff, eds., An Ottoman Cosmography: Translation of Cihānnümā by Kātib Çelebi. Translated by Ferenc Csirkés, John Curry, and Gary Leiser. Handbook of Oriental Studies, volume 142. Leiden: Brill, 2022. Pp. xiv + 694, 46 plates and 98 figures, ISBN: 978-9004441323.
- Alfred Hiatt, ed., Cartography between Christian Europe and the Arabic-Islamic World, 1100–1500: Divergent Traditions, Leiden: Brill, 2021, xiv + 235 pp., 45 color figures, ISBN: 978-9004444911.
- Douglas A. Howard, Das Osmanische Reich 1300–1924. Darmstadt: Theis, 2018, 480 S., zahlr. Karten und Abbildungen. ISBN 978-3-8062-3703-0.
- Nimrod Hurvitz, Christian C. Sahner, Uriel Simonsohn and Luke Yarbrough, eds., Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook, Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2020, xxi + 355 pp. (including timelines, maps and indices), ISBN: 978-0-520-29673-2.
- Andreas Kaplony and Daniel Potthast, eds., From Qom to Barcelona. Aramaic, South Arabian, Coptic, Arabic and Judeo-Arabic Documents. Edited by, Leiden/Boston: Brill 2021, XIX + 227 p. + 37 Abb., Islamic History and Civilization, Studies and Texts 178. ISBN 978-90-04-44384-6.
- Christopher Melchert, Before Sufism: Early Islamic Renunciant Piety. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020, 240 pages, ISBN hardcover: 9783110616514, ISBN e-book: 9783110617962.
- Robert Mihajlovski, The Religious and Cultural Landscape of Ottoman Manastır. Handbook of Oriental Studies, Handbuch der Orientalistik, Section One: The Near and Middle East, vol. 153, Brill: Leiden/Boston, 2021, 309 Seiten, ISBN 978-90-04-46525-1 (hardback).
- Amir Theilhaber, Friedrich Rosen. Orientalist Scholarship and International Politics, München: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2020, 627 pp., ISBN 978-3-11-063925-4 (hardback).
