The Liberation of Islamic Letters

This chapter focuses on Bint al-Shatiʾ, whose writings crystallize some of the most salient themes of the modern Islamic public sphere and illustrate the power of adab in formulating modern Islamic ethics and politics. A public intellectual, political activist, chaired professor, journalist, and adēba (woman of letters), Bint al-Shatiʾ synthesized discursive trends for a broad spectrum of readers that included both intellectual elites and popular audiences. Her Omdurman lectures reinterpreted the concept of “women's liberation” for an Islamic politics, nearly seventy years after Qasim Amin first ventured his interpretation of “women's liberation” in Islam in 1899. Like Amin, she has unmitigated faith in the power of education and knowledge—scientific, Islamic, and literary—to elevate the political community from its political chains. But she also surpasses Amin in imagining the force of women's literary voices in transforming the umma, just as she surpassed him in literary accomplishment, stature, and recognition.