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What are Arab women Novelists writing about, and why are they writing it
The Story of Arab women novelists reflects, in many ways, the story of
most women in different disciplines: it is the story of abundant
creativity with very few rights or sometimes no rights at all. It is the
story of a group of women who were absented from the literary scene simply
because their creativity and attitudes proved to be different from men's,
who were and still are, the "mainstream" and the only arbiters who decide
what is literally valuable and what is not. It is a story that went on
unnoticed for a hundred years because, as men related it, there was only
one version of the official history of Arabic literature.'
In the recent half-century, Arab woman writers have acquired a distinctive
position in the field of literature, with an impressive richness,
diversity and creativity in their writing. Woman novelists lead the reign
of storytelling now just as they did right at the beginning. 'The first
Arab novel was written by a woman, fifteen years before any Arab man tried
his hand at this literary genre. Hush al Awaqib, by Zaynab Fawaz, was
published in 1899.' For them, storytelling was a way of self-expression,
and individualism. The intention is not to imply that it is gender
difference itself that determines the nature of literary creation, on the
contrary, it underscores differences in experience, differences that are
manifested in literature. But it is often viewed that "individualistic"
works by many woman writers can be read as feminist in the context of Arab
culture. This culture denotes that values such as collective ethnic and
religious identity conformity behaviors are caught up in the power
structure. Therefore, feminism is also institutionalized in these values.
Other criticisms in regard to women's novels are that they their works
were merely an extension of their bodies, that the heroines in the text
are representatives of themselves. Another criticism was that the subjects
and issues the women writers dealt with could not possibly be of any
public interest due to the fact that the majority of the works were about
love, family and children and reflected the restricted world they lived
in. Even other women critics dissociated themselves with women's works
and concentrated on the works of men instead.
But the truth is that not only were women the first to write novels in
Arabic, they were also the first to deal with major issues, even before
men addressed them. Also, evidence from works such as Liyana Badr's A
Balcony of the Fakhani demonstrate beyond any doubt that Arab women
novelists were intensely involved in the social and political concerns of
their countries and societies. Even during the most difficult times, they
were not living on the peripherals of social and political events. Their
views on important issues were different from those of men. This could be
one reason why their creativity was looked down upon, and that their
contributions did not achieve the rights they were looking for. Novels
like the one mentioned above also portray that since women had no roles in
political corruption, their views reflected a genuine concern for the
people and their country. That is why the issues discussed by them are
considered the most urgent issues on the agenda of Arab women, liberal
thinkers and reformers even today.
Events like the Lebanese war in the 80's create the philosophy that
national problems are the responsibility of every citizen and that true
citizenship requires one to play an active role in political movements
rather than passively wait for escape from turmoil. On this point,
women's writings reflect a link between nationality and their own
liberation to such an extent that the two struggles become independent
ones and in the struggle for freedom, the oppressors were no longer men,
but hostile foreign forces. Faced with national crisis, women writers
would cease to look upon men as being primary subjugators in the need for
a solid and united co-existence.
In 'A land of Rock and Thyme', the first of three novellas of A Balcony
over the Fakihani, Liyana Badr attempts to portray the terrifying memories
of a young widow as she bears the trials and tribulations of the civil
war. Translated from Arabic by Peter Clark, the story told is fiction, but
the themes and chronologies are from real life scenarios, recognized from
archival newspaper records. Each short segment represents a flashback of
a different time and place. Perhaps these fragments of memory represent
what is left of the city of Beirut, a land that chose to divide and
expunge its Muslim population, and drive out the Palestinians. The shards
of historical evidence are expertly taken by Badr and personified into raw
emotion. It was the author's aim to take these memories of a forgotten war
and dig them out of the ground again, because these recollections still
haunt and torture the souls of the people still living today.
The chapter starts off with the young woman Yusra dreaming about standing
before her husband's grave in the martyr's cemetery carrying with her a
picture taken of him, when she first met him. Wanting to go back and
return it, she realizes it is too dangerous, and her sister Jamila locks
the picture up in a closet. 'What should I do then? Wait? My whole life
had been spent waiting and waiting - but I hadn't expected to marry a man
who'd love me and want me, and then leave forever and never come back.'
From this statement we can see the despair of the young women. Her
relationship with her husband was not atypical; breaking away from
arranged marriages, she fell in love with a man not chosen by her family
and married him. Sometimes, during war, non-traditional arrangements
become acceptable; everything becomes acceptable. When one sleeps at night
with the fear that they will not wake up alive, or that their loved ones
will be dead the next morning, then anything and everything goes.
As the flashback into her life continues, we see Yusra and her family
leave Damour to take refuge from the Israeli air strike in the Tal al
Zaatar camp. One of the chapters, Water Has a Memory, focuses on the daily
plight to get water. Water, in a sense, could be interpreted as
representing many things; some think it represents education, knowledge,
wisdom, or in this case, peace. The characters in the novel are in the
constant struggle to search for peace, harmony from this terror that they
call life. While standing in line for hours and hours at a go, Yusra and
her sister Jamila are stubborn on getting those two jerry-cans of water
filled up, even if it means losing their lives or getting injured in the
process. Finally, when the tap would be turned off from the front,
everyone would leave and run for cover.
It was in this plight for water when Yusra's father was shot and injured,
and it was insisted that she not be summoned, greater was the importance
that she not lose her place in line. 'That's what really hurt me. If only
I'd been able to see him, to talk to him - once more - while he was still
alive. He had spent four hours talking normally with them.' This
symbolizes the fact that the people hung on, till the very last breath;
they did not surrender without a fight, the fight to keep living. But no
one in the camp expected to live. If you were not hit in an attack of
shells, it was because 'you were protected by fate.' As fate takes it's
path, her brother also gets killed as they fled from Tal al Zaatar.
A young boy of only fifteen years, his naivety caused him to say he was
"Palestinian" rather than "Lebanese" like he was warned to do so. With
one shot in the head, he was gone.
As these tales of death and sorrow are told, Badr presents the
brutality in short single paragraphed episodes, devoid of blame or
accusation. She is simply rendering the lives of young people, who have
lived with violence all their lives. Her characters are not heroes, but
mourners and survivors of tragedy who must always be prepared for more.
In one scene, the Christian militias watched as they fled from Tal al
Zaatar, and they grabbed one man by the shoulder, who in fear blurted "For
God's sake!" and the reply was, "Which God?" accompanied by a single shot
in the head.
The story continues with the description of how she met Ahmad, her
husband. He had returned from India, after being there for five years,
studying radiography. The marriage was a brief period in the novel when
Yusra, despite her trials and tribulations, is happy with her life. The
couple moves from house to house, never being able to settle down, even
so, they are still happy because they have each other. After that, her
husband was shot in an Israeli air raid, a wound to the head the cause of
his death. Yusra, devastated, her days filled with agony and grief is no
longer thankful to be alive. When consoled by her family who advise her to
let go, she screams, "Don't talk to me about forgetting!"
This becomes the main theme of this book; it is impossible to forget what
had happened during that war. The author revealed the theme in such a
significant way, that the book has an everlasting impact on anyone who is
affected by it.
The second narrative in the book, namely, A Balcony Over the
Fakihani depicts the story of Su'ad, who, from a balcony overlooking the
Fakihani, recollects September in Amman, Black September, as she calls it.
Su'ad lived in refugee camps in Beirut and Damascus until she married
Umar, a Tunisian who came to join Palestine forces in the resistance.
There was one characteristic about this man that he was always smiling.
Sometimes he was so full of joy that people would think he is infallible.
The couple marries, and this is another example of how Arabs chose whom
they marry, rather then it being arranged, when they are involved in a
political struggle. When they arrive in Beirut, they stay with an
unmarried couple, and this became uncomfortable after a while. This
represents how a thing such as living together while not being wed is
unacceptable in their society. The husband soon develops a mysterious
ailment, Su'ad thought it could be cancer and urged him to stop smoking.
He then went abroad for treatment, and returned, seemingly cured. Su'ad
becomes pregnant, has a miscarriage and then has twins. There is curious
tension about her having more children, and this could be an analogy to
the Palestinian people; would they survive?
As the story unfolds, the author discusses the 1973 clashes with
the Lebanese army. They attacked the Shatila and Sabra cantonments. There
was one point in the story when Su'ad discovers a white hair on her child,
Louisa's head. 'As I was giving Ruba some milk, I noticed a white hair in
the middle of her head. I couldn't believe a baby's hair could turn
white.' This is a symbol for ultimate injustice. The author is trying to
portray how all the events that led to the war, and whatever happened
afterwards would eventually lead to distraught of generations to come.
Towards the end of this section, we come across many scenes of
destructive chaos. 'The noise! Something extraordinary. Suddenly, it
shrieks into the sky, whizzes around us. The earth shakes as if the
building will cave down in on us. A cloud of black smoke. Boom! Another
tearing earthquake. Planes. The Israeli air force. People, cries of
terror. My body aches with a cold shiver, icy, I am no longer able to
move.' With these lines, to the reader it seems as though they can
actually hear the raids. Another point the author is trying to make is
that in the toils of this war, gender differences become blind and the
relationships between men and women are open. Rather than being man and
woman they are comrades, joined together in a common struggle to survive.
However, the majority of prominent and important issues Arab women
writers discuss in their novels deal with issues about love, marriage,
sex, dominance of men, and they roles they play in society. Most of them
attempt to shake the previously held ideas about Arab society; they want
to abandon the clichs and stereotypes that exist in the Arab world. For
many, the picture of Arab society is one represented by Saudi Arabia. It
is important for literature to be written with different views and ideas,
ones that actually exist in reality.
The veil is one major issue that brings to the fore many controversies. In
some cases, speakers and writers say that the veil is coming back with a
'vengeance.' Any practice associated with religion is difficult to change,
and as it makes a comeback in some countries, others never abandoned it.
It is crucial that the reasons for veiling are understood by the western
world; to many it seems oppressive, there is the notion that without the
veil, women's liberation can never be achieved. 'Increased contact with
the West led Arab intellectuals to question the position of Arab women.
These scholars began to debate the reasons for the practicing of veiling
and they focused on the question of whether Islam itself required it or
whether the patriarchal system had imposed the restrictions on
pseudo-religious grounds.'
Fadia Faqir addresses many of these issues in her novel Pillars of Salt.
We are introduced to the character of Maha, a Bedouin woman, who lives a
conventional life, with a not-so-conventional character. The story removes
many of the stereotypical aspects one might have about Bedouin society,
and at the same time, it changes the outlook about urban life as well.
This comparison is manifested with the introduction of Um Saad, the woman
who shares a room with Maha in the Fuhais Mental Hospital. In the novel,
we deal with the lives of three main characters, each representing a
distinct aspect of the Arab world, and from all of them, the message is
loud and clear; in their world, there exists nothing written plainly in
black or white, but in various shades of gray. There is Sami al- Ajnabi,
the Storyteller, who symbolizes, the outside world, the society and
vicious rumors that spread like wildfire. His point of view is one shared
predominantly by men, and it agrees with the social dogma that portrays
woman as evil and potential adulteresses. To him, men are not seen as the
adversaries but as the victims of distorted social concepts of women.
The Storyteller introduces Maha as 'a shrew who used to chew the shredded
flesh of mortals from sun birth to sun death. She was a sharp sword stuck
into the sides of the Arab's enemies.' He associated her evil with her
mother's gypsy blood and describes her as one who will live to take
revenge for the first girl child who was buried in Arabia. He talks about
female infanticide as if it was justified and says, 'When the tribe was
told that they had a daughter instead of a son, their faces turned black.'
He also confesses how she was beautiful 'as the fresh dawn in Wadi Rum.'
In a way, he is relating beauty with evil.
Soon we learn about Maha's marriage with Harb. There was an instance in
the novel, when Harb, a respected Bedouin's son, wants to meet Maha after
hours. This was deemed dishonorable to her, and she decides not to meet
him, later, thinking herself a coward. Surprisingly, the next day her
father tells her that Harb had asked for her hand in marriage. 'Just like
any other man in our tribe, he proposed to me because I had said no.'
Possibly, even if Harb was not the typical Arab man, deep down, could his
thinking be the same as the next person?
Maha's relationship with her husband can be compared and contrasted to Um
Saad's. Despite the fact that Um Saad was from the city, and not from the
villages, her marriage was arranged; her father had not let her chose who
she married. On the contrary, he was quite an unjust man. For Um Saad,
marriage was an escape from the oppression she faced from her father. Her
wedding was arranged with a man who she did not love; and was not even
informed of her wedding day until the very last moment. 'Who wants to have
a clear head? Who wants to remember how my father slapped my face there
and then pushed me inside the house?' Her wedding night was one of
horror, as her 'soggy cheeked' husband chased her around, ripped off her
clothes and then raped her. Maha's wedding night, on the other hand was
one of romance and love. Maha insisted they walk near the Dead Sea, and it
was because of this incident, when the impurity of the water entered her
body, she was unable to become pregnant for six months following this.
Not only was her relationship with her husband a wide contrast to Um
Saad's, but also, her bond with her father not confined to simply a father
and daughter relationship. It was more of a companionship. For Sheikh
Nimer, Maha was the prodigy of Maliha, his wife and the mother of his
children. 'He said that I reminded him of my mother, Maliha, Allah bless
her soul. The same big brown eyes and quivering chin.'
The author discussed virginity as an important issue towards the middle of
the book. At one point, Maha's companion, Nasra, faces the tragedy of
being raped by Daffash, Maha's brother. 'My friend had lost her virginity,
her honor, her life. She was nothing now. No longer a virgin, absolutely
nothing. A piece of flesh. A cheap whore.' Daffash has taken away
Nasra's future. Nasra, later on in the novel, seems to have developed an
odd affinity for Daffash. We see this when she attempts to save his life,
twice. Regarding virginity, in another part of the novel, on Maha's
wedding night, it was interesting how the whole tribe waited outside their
door, for a piece of white cloth with blood on it, proving the honor of
the tribe. 'I was thinking of my honor. I was a virgin: I had the blood in
me, but Harb was the one to spill it. Harb was the one who was supposed to
prove that I was a virgin. What if they were never given the sheet with
blood on it? They will think I had no honor.' In an unusual way, Maha
possessed a certain amount of power, as did all women in the tribe. If she
were not a virgin, it would have cost the honor of the whole tribe and
their faces would have been blackened forever.
When they did discover that she was indeed a virgin, 'the whole tribe went
mad. The honey in its jar was safe; I was pure.'
Apart from love, marriage, virginity and sex, Faqir raises a number of
different issues regarding the predominance of men. In some ways, she
suggests that there will always be someone in the village who is
oppressive to the women around him. In Maha's case, it is her brother
Daffash who is the cause of her oppression. Even though her father was
always there in her defense, he understood the boundaries that could not
be crossed.
'Since I had become a woman, he did not want me to work in the field
because it was exhausting and shameful. A woman's place was in a
well-closed room.'
For the Arab culture, family values are of utmost significance. Before
marriage, women are dependent on their fathers, and after they are wed,
the responsibility switches to their husbands. If, as in Maha's case, the
husband dies, then his widow is left to the mercy of her male family
members. After Harb died in the war, Maha returned home, only to see the
disarray her brother has made of the household. Obsessed with western
culture, Daffash has no interest whatsoever in taking care of the farmland
Maha used to tend to. His only interest was concern was pursuing trade and
business with the foreigners of the land. Maha resented this, as it was
the British who killed Harb in the war. ' "You killed my husband Harb."
With metal eagles.' The Arabian Mare, as Harb used to call her, stood up
to Daffash while cooking for a gathering for the British and paid the
price. Beating her till unconsciousness, Maha realized that no matter how
capable she is of standing on her own two feet, in the end, she is only a
woman. 'Why couldn't I defend myself? Why couldn't I hit back? Why
couldn't I pluck out his eyes?'
After all the events that take place in her life, Maha eventually loses
everything; her father is dead, her husband is dead, and her child is an
orphan. Left to rot in a mental hospital, her only companion is an aged
woman, older than her who seeks comfort in her and depends on her as a
confidant. She wonders if she will ever see her son again, who is now
adopted by Daffash. And if she does, will he still be the same innocent
child, once compared to Jesus by the Storyteller?
Faqir demonstrates a different perspective of Bedouin women in her novel.
Some might say that Bedouin women rely a great deal on other women where
companionship and emotional exchange are concerned. Their lifestyle causes
them to spend a great deal of their time relying on other women for
support, and especially when young, they share with them amusement and
support. Friendships are exclusively with members of their own sex.
Possibly, a co-wife would make a more likely candidate for enriching and
sharing a women's life than the husband is. In Maha's case, there was a
considerable amount of dependence on her friend Nasra, but at the same
time, she possessed a deeply satisfying and emotionally stimulating
relationship with her husband, many times in the novel addressing him as
the 'twin of her soul.' For Harb, taking on a second wife was
unimaginable, even when it was difficult for Maha to bear children in the
beginning. The bonds between women were definitely prominent, as we
observe her relationship with Tamman, Harb's mother.
Another view is that women in the city rely heavily on their husbands for
companionship and emotional exchange and support. Since city-life limits a
women's daily contact to the members of her immediate family, it prevents
spending too much time with friends or relatives, as in the case of
Bedouin women. However, from Um Saad's story, neither did she receive that
kind of support from her husband, nor did she have strong ties with her
sons. Maha would spend day and night in the hospital worrying about her
child, Mubarak, while Um Saad would not be concerned about their welfare.
Her grievances were dedicated to the new wife her husband had taken on
earlier. Thus, previous notions about the differences between urban women
and Bedouin women are abandoned.
In A Woman of Five Seasons, Leila al-Atrash introduces us to a different
kind of Arab woman, one unlike Maha and Um Saad, yet parallel to them in
many ways. Nadia Natour lives in a make-believe town called Barqais, but
it is evident that it belongs to Kuwait, a town that has recently been
urbanized and immigrants from the villages leave their homes to make a
life in the city. Nadia is married to Ihsan, a businessman, and the
relationship rather than being one of love, becomes one of oppression. Her
husband is presented to us a man with a traditionally exploitive attitude
in his relationships with people as well as his business dealings. In
Pillar of Salt, Harb held Maha in high esteem and addressed her as 'my
Arabian Mare,' while Ihsan, on the other hand identifies as her 'my lovely
kitten,' a derogatory epithet she grows to hate. His disrespectful
attitude is apparent in the first chapter when he constantly attempts to
awake her from her sleep, so that she wakes up and satisfies him. 'He made
a deliberate noise, moved everything he touched, hoping to wake her.'
There is an interesting affinity with hair in the novel, it being a symbol
of women's beauty and stimulation for men's desires. In one part, she
comes out of the shower with curls instead of it smooth and straight like
it always it, and this signifies the fake nature of the relationship.
As love and sex plays a large role in this novel too, we see how Nadia
detests to be touched by her husband, again a vast contrast to Maha in
Pillars of Salt. 'It burns me with its whip when Ihsan tries to arouse the
female in me.' She then remembers the words of her mother who made told
her to 'do whatever he tells you. Keep all his secrets. Let him find only
the purest fragrance in you.' There did exist many secrets between Nadia
and Ihsan. She was secretly in love with his brother even before she
married Ihsan, but for her it was more important to find someone who was
willing to commit. Ihsan was aware of the affection that existed between
Nadia and Jalal, but rather than encouraging it, he wanted Nadia for
himself, in order to spite his brother. There was an obvious resentment
and jealousy for him, ever since he was a child. When they used to run and
play, he would cry and cheat if Jalal got ahead of him in the game.
Ihsan's own mother knew his nature and once said, 'How I fear you from
yourself, son.'
The novel also concentrates on the world of power and money in their
world. Money is everything to some people; it is the only thing that
motivates them and the only reason for happiness. Ihsan fails to
understand that for Nadia, material things are unimportant. She craves
freedom, freedom to be herself, to wear whatever she wants, even a
red-rose color that is unappealing to Ihsan. Nadia loved to read and after
she married him he asked her not to read books, and gave her magazines
instead. When she wanted to return to school and finish her degree, he
wanted children instead. When she wanted a husband like Jalal, someone who
would understand her and appreciate her, she was stuck with Ihsan instead.
Then an incident happens that changes Nadia's life forever. One day when
Jalal was drunk, he tried to make a pass at her. Nadia expected something
else from him, she expected him to confess his love and desires for her,
and tell her that she was always the one and that they should be together.
Instead, he rudely tries to kiss Nadia in a dark room, when no one is
around. Nadia, disgusted, realizes that the perfect picture she had
carried for all these years was far from reality. The image of him as a
gentleman is crumbled forever.
Nadia now believes that only she can save herself from her situation. Not
Jalal, not Ihsan, not any man. 'I'm not their woman. Not anyone's woman!
I'd always supposed Jalal was what he seemed, that he had real power to
touch my inner being, to see it in a sexless way and communicate with it.
But to him I'm just a female - and he's a man. I - Nadia al-Faqih - no one
will be able to know or possess me. From this moment on I possess myself.
They'll see a face unknown to them.' Towards the end of the novel we see
a side to her that was always there, but was repressed. One important
issue here is that rather that Ihsan dominating her, it was she who let
herself be dominated. Nadia takes control of her life now. She starts her
own business, and tells her husband that she is moving to London with her
children to do business there. Ihsan is astonished, but says nothing
because the situation works out well for him. Slowly, Nadia gains power
and control over the relationship. She has the reigns instead of him now.
At end of the novel, Ihsan is caught up in a power struggle, and his
weaknesses are taken advantage of. In London, he was set up by a colleague
to have an affair with a woman, and photographs were taken of him. After
everything Nadia is the one who comes and gets him out of the mess. 'Ihsan
was speechless. The situation was bigger than any cunning he was capable
of. The decision he knew, was hers alone now.' The tables have turned.
Hence, we see how Arab women authors explore the intricacies of their
lives as women, of their families and of family relations. It is the
literature in which a woman is able to express her inner feelings and
subtle sensitivity in female spheres, which are out of a man's reach.
'Women's literature describes female habits and modes of thinking which no
man writer, however talented he might be, could reach.' In the voices of
brilliant authors like the ones mentioned previously, women attempt to
make it known their cries for justice, equality a need for social change.
This new generation of feminist writers has illuminated women's strengths
and driven out deeply entrenched taboos about their weaknesses. From here
on, a new, confident and creative Arab woman emerges who breaks all
stereotypes of women's weaknesses and inferiority.
References
Shaaban, Bouthania, Middle East Women's Studies Review, (2000)
Badr, Liyana, A Balcony over the Fakihani, Beirut (1993)
Arabic Prose: Introduction, http://bitspot.org/Gender
Literaqture/arabicarticle/zeidan.htm
Faqir, Fadia, Pillars of Salt, New York (1997) p.3
Al-Atrash, Leila, A Woman of Five Seasons, New York (2002)
Shaaban, Bouthaina, Women's Forum: What are Arab Women Authors Writing About? Arab Woman Writers: "Are There Any?" February 1993, p.36
Ahmed, Leila, Women And Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern
Debate, Yale University (1992)
Shaukat Ali, Parveen, Status of Women in the Muslim World: A Study in the
Feminist Movements in Turkey, Egypt, Iran and Pakistan, Lahore (1975)