By Mursi Saad El-Din Last week I stopped at an interesting way of thinking about changing, or indeed managing society -- with respect, specifically, to the question of women and their place in the social structure. In spite of the fact that as a religion Islam is a beacon of tolerance open to discussion and interpretation, zealots who subscribe to a bigoted, fundamentalist way of thinking, denying women their rights, constitute a real danger in this department, threatening not only progress but peace. The question of woman's place in society, as Mona Mikhail, for one enlightened university professor points out, can be assessed from several different angles, especially as regards the complexity of contemporary social structures and the intertwining relations of social entities throughout the modern era. The female question has numerous dimensions indeed, but any discussion of it within the Arab- Islamic social context cannot afford to be divorced from the phenomenon known variously as "revival" and that known as "fundamentalism". But to what extent do the differences between the Nahda (revival) discourse on the one hand and Islamic fundamentalism on the other have a bearing on the question of women in society. Mikhail believes that, rather than any inherent aspect of the faith, it is custom and tradition that has resulted in a negative image of Islam. Islam is not responsible for any deterioration in the conditions of women. Rather, it is the way Muslims have sometimes organised society in such a way as to create such conditions. In fact "a new reading of Islam and its texts, one that opposes Salafi (fundamentalist) precepts" had paved the way for the Nahda since the start. When it comes to the question of woman's place in society. the Nahda discourse attempts to integrate human beings, be they male or female, into a unified, homogenous whole. Qasem Amin's interpretation of the dictates of Islam concerning women, for example, made precisely that point. Yet in his book Women in Sharia and Society, Al-Taher Al-Haddad goes even further in specifying the status of women as dictated by Islam, claiming that Muslim law does not provide a final decision as to the essence of woman in society, and going on to say that nothing in Muslim texts should deny women the right to play the social role assigned to them in many modern societies. With social changes at the back of our mind, we may well choose to interpret religious traditions concerning the role of women in their correct historical context, deducing conclusions as to their present-day status. The theory, proposed by many others besides Al- Haddad, is that Sharia had its roots in society -- the essence of Islam is not an immutable given but rather a guiding principle subject to re-interpretation and rediscovery through the ages -- a process that concurs with the growth and development of human consciousness and modes of being. This is in itself one of the principal premises of the Nahda discourse, which grants the mind space in which to move freely without imposing barriers to isolate the constant from the changeable or the secular from the religious. How does this relate to the question of women in society? Many contend that the issue, along with the religious texts relating to it, can be one among many incentives to develop and fortify the Nahda discourse -- to make it as close as possible to a scientific consciousness, an enlightened understanding of religion and its application to the modern world, in which the practice of demeaning women can only be seen as an aspect of demeaning human beings in general, something to which religion essentially objects. It is therefore in the Nahda discourse and its alliance with dynamic, relevant interpretations of religious texts that the dignity of humanity can be sought. Love and respect for women, to quote Al-Haddad, is but "a reflection of our love and respect for ourselves"; it is, moreover, an attempt at "a more complete self- realisation".
