The Dystopian Plight of Womanhood and Fear in Zoya Pirzad’s Things We Left Unsaid

Through Judith Butler’s theories, it is depicted that dystopia is embedded within our most precious ideals. Dystopia depicts a world in which the right to choose and self-discovery has lost all meaning, and in which individuals are tools through which ideology is implemented. Zoya Pirzad, in her book, Things We Left Unsaid, talks about the unfairness of cultural values. She questions idealistic attitudes towards life’s realities and invites us towards new definitions of humanity. It is revealed in this research that our attitudes towards humanity can be very rigid and restrictive; in a way that the differences that show humanity’s complexity and beauty are considered unpleasant and unnatural and the result is nothing but pain and unhappiness.

De l’intelligence et des femmes

Résumé Dans les Akhbār al-adhkiyāʾ (Histoires de personnes intelligentes), un ouvrage d’adab consacré aux personnes d’intelligence aiguë, Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200) traite des histoires des « femmes sagaces » (al-nisāʾ al-mutafaṭṭināt). Les anecdotes sur les femmes figurent dans un chapitre qui s’inscrit en contraste – par ses critères de catégorisation – avec les autres chapitres du livre. Cet agencement textuel spécifique vise-t-il à définir une intelligence typiquement féminine, ou une manière particulière pour les femmes de manifester leur intelligence ? Pour étudier cette question, je m’intéresserai d’abord à la conception de l’intelligence qui émerge dans les Akhbār al-adhkiyāʾ, en la comparant également avec le concept de mètis ; ensuite, je questionnerai les anecdotes du chapitre sur les femmes intelligentes dans la perspective des théories de Luce Irigaray.

Virtue, Sanctity, and Charity of the Royal Women of Fez

The history of the Banū Marīn of the kingdom of Fez (seventh–ninth/thirteenth–fifteenth centuries) cannot and should not be reconstructed without a gender perspective which gives the women of this dynasty a place within its historic discourse. They played a key role in the political and religious legitimacy of the rulers, as reflected by the Banū Marīn historiography which, mirroring the idiosyncrasy of medieval Berber societies, afforded its women a visible space. However, as it was always subject to the clear interests of male political-religious legitimacy, this space for visibilisation is worthy of analysis. This study examines the different profoundly religious behaviour and capabilities which the chronicles assigned to different royal Merinid women, as related in the various anecdotes transmitted in their pages. Additional analysis is carried out on how these model characterisations aimed to increase the aura of spirituality of the amīrs, influenced by their close relationship and everyday contact with these women.

Islamic Law, Slavery, and Feelings

This article studies a fourth/tenth-century notarial model to limit and place conditions on (istirʿāʾ) the manumission of an unruly and bad-tempered female slave. The text is part of al-Wathāʾiq wa-l-sijillāt, a notarial manual compiled by Cordoban scholar Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār (d. 399/1009), the earliest edited Andalusi work of this genre. Although it is part of a chapter on slavery and, more specifically, of a section dedicated to the manumission of slaves, it is not a generic notarial text dealing with the manumission of female slaves. The document is not a manumission form, but one that complements and limits a manumission; in fact, its aim is to impede or overturn the process. The article studies this notarial model in three different contexts: (1) Andalusi kutub al-wathāʾiq, (2) Mālikī legal literature on slavery and (3) notarial model reservation testimonies. Even if, at first glance, it appears to be an unusual legal document, when analysing other Mālikī sources we observe that the text is part of a well-documented tradition with widely accepted legal justification. This model is nevertheless exceptional from a procedural point of view because its legal arguments are based on feelings and refer specifically to the slave’s personality, temperament and behaviour as the factors that motivated the legal act.

The Word “Woman” in Pre-Modern Arabic Lexicons

In all languages, lexicons constitute a valuable source of information on femininities and women. This assertion is enhanced in the case of pre-modern Arabic lexicography, due to the diversity of its contents. However, the picture of women in lexicons has always received more attention in the field of lexicography in Western languages than in Arabic. This paper aims to fill a minor part of this noteworthy gap, by shedding light on all semantical, lexical, and orthographic elements which concern the word “woman” (imraʾa/al-marʾa) in pre-modern Arabic lexicons, more specifically, under the root m-r-ʾ.

The Chapters on Women in Two Adab Encyclopaedias from the Mamluk Period

This paper is a study of the chapters devoted to women in general and to female figures (female singers) in two encyclopaedic adab works of the Mamluk period, al-Nuwayrī’s Nihāyat al-arab and al-Ibshīhī’s al-Mustaṭraf fī kulli fann al-mustaẓraf. We will analyse the content of these chapters, their focus, the materials from which they are constructed and their objectives within the ensemble of the works. We will also look at the moral and intellectual qualities that configure the portrayal of women in these books, in common with others of adab prose. The final aim of all this is to obtain results to add to those that already exist, with a view to defining the female character types in this literature, the topics that make women visible in it and their relationship with male characters in the stories.

Creating Cultural Capital: The Education of Jewish Females at the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) School for Girls in the City of Tunis, 1882–1914

Based on rarely viewed images from the fin de siècle, this article will contribute to the burgeoning field of Jewish women in the world of Islam. At the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) School for Girls in the city of Tunis, 1882–1914, after a seven-year course of study, Jewish and non-Jewish girls acquired certification of their academic or vocational skills through a certificate or diploma of couture. Such credentials, according to Bourdieu (1986), constitute “cultural capital.” Furthermore, “cultural capital … is convertible … into economic capital and may be institutionalized in the forms of educational qualifications.” A young woman could create cultural capital and transform it into economic capital through employment. Reading the sources, the influence of the Tunisian Muslim woman on the Jewess becomes apparent. Moreover, cultural capital could afford the Jewish female wage earner increased economic independence and social mobility, as she journeyed on the road to modernity.

Islamic Heritage and Morisco Identity

Through an assessment of the data recorded in two books of habices (Span., libros de habices – inventories of goods from Islamic pious endowments) dated 1527 and 1530, this study examines the situation of Morisco women in the Alpujarra, a rural area of Granada, just three decades after the forced conversion of the Muslim population to Christianity. Various aspects of the economic and social position of these women are explored, paying particular attention to their participation in the legal framework related to property ownership and the transfer of their possessions in the form of bequests. Although the study focuses primarily on the Morisco period, its most immediate precedent, Islamic and Mudéjar Granada, is not forgotten.