The Life of Rabia al-Adawiyya: Reflections on Feminism and Fundamentalism

Karen Vintges

The life of Rabia al-Adawiyya is the subject of many legends and stories. Rabia was
an eighth century mystic who is generally known as one of the founders of Sufism.
(1) Her life is still a source of inspiration for many Muslim women. Muslim feminists
like Leila Ahmed make references to her (Ahmed, 1989, 1992), but so do women
from ‘fundamentalist’ movements. (2) Although I am not a Muslim, I also find the life
of Rabia intriguing, as well as the lives of the Orthodox women that are the subjects
of case studies by Chia Longman, Sarah Bracke and Saba Mahmood. (3) Drawing
from these lives and particularly the life of Rabia al-Adawiyya, I will discuss the
relationship between feminism and fundamentalism in religious contexts. (leader)

I want to start out with the question as to why I as a non-believer find it interesting
to read about the lives of female Sufi-saints of long ago and of today’s orthodox-
religious women. It is often stated that the loss of religion and tradition has left
modern human-beings too much to their own devices and because of this we live in
a ‘time of discontent’. (See Verbrugge, 2004) Needless to say, a return to religion is
not possible for everyone, let alone necessarily desirable considering the positions
that were granted to women by these religions in the past. What then can I learn
from these strongly religious women today? To answer this question I will examine
the elements of which their lives are composed of.
For this I make use of the concepts of the philosopher Michel Foucault and the
intellectual-historian Siep Stuurman, and draw from an article by Saba Mahmood
about the Egyptian Women’s Mosque Movement. (Stuurman, 2004, 2005; Foucault,
1997; Mahmood, 2001) Foucault in his later works (1976-1984) studies vocabularies
that offer the tools for what he called ‘ethical self-formation’. Through all kinds of
exercises, or ‘self-techniques’, people in history have strived for a coherent ethical
way of life, thus forming themselves as ethical subjects. Foucault pointed these
traditions and practices of ethical self-formation out in different contexts: not only
within the context of Greek antiquity, but also within the contexts of Christianity and
Islam. (4) Cultural anthropologist Mahmood builds on the latter in her study of
women in the Egyptian Women’s Mosque Movement (2001). She argues that
Foucault’s theoretical framework allows for a conceptualization of women’s ‘agency’
in these type of Islamist movements. Mahmood demonstrates that these women, far
from being the passive oppressed creatures Western feminists hold them to be, are
active agents which practice an ethical ‘self-fashioning’ that engages their entire way
of life. For Mahmood, these Islamist women show that there are more ways of
‘human flourishing’ than Western feminists can imagine. According to her, Western
feminism, with its key assumptions of individual freedom and autonomy, should stop
wanting to rescue women like the ones from the Egyptian Women’s Mosque
Movement, since they strive for completely different values. But what are these
values? In the following section, I let some of Mahmood’s respondents speak for
themselves. (5)
One of these respondents, Nadia, answers the question of whether or not she found
it hard to cope with the fact that she did not get married until the age of 34, in a
country where marriage is the standard for women, and life as an independent
person is almost impossible. Nadia answers: ‘You have to have a very strong
personality for all of this to not affect you because eventually you also start thinking
that there is something deeply wrong with you that explains why you are not
married.’ Next, Mahmood asks her what she means by ‘strong’. Nadia answers: ‘You
must be patient in the face of difficulty, trust in God, and accept the fact that this is
what He has willed as your fate; if you complain about it all the time, then you are
denying that it is only God who has the wisdom to know why we live in the
conditions we do and not humans.’
Mahmood then asks Nadia about her own experiences since she got married quite
late. Was she able to achieve such a state of mind? Nadia: ‘O Saba, you don’t learn
to become patient or trust in God just when you face difficulties. (...) You practice
the virtue of patience [sabr] because it is a good deed, regardless of your situation:
whether your life is difficult or happy. In fact, practicing patience in the face of
happiness is even more difficult.’ (Mahmood, 2001, p. 219-220)
Sabr (patience or modesty) is stipulated as virtuous by some traditions of Islam. It is
a virtue that constantly has to be exercised and practised. Piety is such a virtue too
and must become an ‘embodied habit’ by simultaneous exercise of the body, the
emotions, and reason, according to Mahmood. (p. 212)
One of her other respondents, Amal, tells us: ‘I used to think that even though
shyness was required of us by God, if I acted shyly it would be hypocritical because I
didn’t actually feel it inside of me. Then one day, in reading verse twenty-five (...) I
realized that shyness was among the good deeds and given my natural lack of it I
had to make or create it first. I realized that making it in yourself is not hypocrisy,
and that eventually your inside learns to have shyness too.’ (p. 213)
So acting and practising is crucial. With regard to the veil the same principle applies.
Again I cite a respondent of Mahmood, Nama: ‘It’s just like the veil. In the beginning
when you wear it, you’re embarrassed, and don’t want to wear it because people say
that you look older and unattractive, that you won’t get married, and will never find
a husband. But you must wear the veil, first because it is God’s command, and then,
with time, your inside learns to feel shy without the veil, and if you were to take it off
your entire being feels uncomfortable about it.’ (p. 213)
Are we only dealing here with internalisation of women’s subordination?, Mahmood
subsequently asks. She concludes to the contrary that we are dealing with ‘agency’ in
the form of a conscious self-cultivation by ‘repeated bodily acts’, through which ‘one
trains one’s memory, desire and intellect to behave according to established
standards of conduct.’ (p. 214)
Mahmood borrows a number of concepts from Foucault’s later works in which he
approached ethics as something to be exercised and practised, through ‘self-
techniques’. Foucault brought forward this practical type of ethics as an alternative to
Western Enlightenment thinking and to the current liberalism that wants to turn
every person into a rational, autonomous individual. For an alternative concept of the
self he mainly referred to the ancient Greek type of ethics in which one strives, by
means of continuous exercise, to an ethical formation of one’s entire way of life i.e.
not just of one’s thinking, but of one’s mind, body, heart and soul - this also being
the reason why Foucault occasionally used the term ‘spirituality’. Mahmood in this
respect rightly refers to a Foucaultian framework to indicate the concept of the self
that she found among the women she interviewed, which clearly differs from the one
of Western liberalism. But Mahmood works selectively. She leaves out the normative
horizon of Foucault’s concepts. For Foucault it makes all the difference ‘that in
antiquity this work on the self with its attendant austerity is not imposed on the
individual by means of civil law or religious obligation, but is a choice about existence
made by the individual.’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 244) They create a beautiful existence
‘for a politico-aesthetical choice’. (p. 241) Ancient ethics in Foucault’s view did not
impose metaphysical truths on people that should be obeyed through self-practices,
but to a large degree consisted of vocabularies that offered the tools and techniques
to freely create a personal ethos.
Although Foucault discusses several kinds of self-practices in history, his preference
clearly lies with the ones that involve this type of free ethical ‘self- creation’, or ‘self-
governance’. His normative horizon was that all people should have access to this
type of 'freedom practices'. (See Vintges, 2004; Thompson, 2003)
According to Foucault all truth regimes entail totalitarian dangers and tendencies.
Instead there has to be as much space as possible for self-governance in the shape
of ethical self-creation or a ‘care for the self’, which is relatively autonomous in
relation to metaphysical, religious or secular truths. With these concepts, Foucault
has created an interesting criterion for an actual validation and approach of religions
in general and for our theme of women and religion in particular.
First of all, we can conclude that the orthodox-religious women that Mahmood
interviewed clearly practice ethical (-spiritual) self-formation, in the sense that body,
mind, heart and soul are all involved in their ‘self-fashioning’. The ethical formation
of their entire life includes a different concept of the self than the one of Western
liberalism, which is grafted to a Cartesian dualism of body and mind and a separation
of public and private life, and which for many, as such, does not have enough to
offer on a normative level. In contrast, ethical(-spiritual) self-formation, in terms of
Foucault, is all about being a person ‘of moral integrity’, a person ‘of blameless
principle and integrity,’ whose acts and thoughts are in accordance. (Foucault, 2001,
p. 69) It is this concept of the self which appeals to many and such different people
today, including myself as a non-religious person.
Next, we can conclude that Mahmood’s women practice a type of ethical self-
formation which does not work on the limits of the tradition of male domination that
is imposed upon them in the name of religious truth; they in other words obey the
structures that are imposed on them and do not practice ethical self-creation or self-
governance. Examples of the latter can been seen in Islamic contexts, among others
in the shape of the emerging movement of ‘Islamic feminism’ (see the articles in part
II of this volume; see also Vintges, 2006 and Mir-Hosseini, 2006), and in the shape
of the lives of Muslim women in the history of Islam, which challenged and
transformed the limits of male domination and which as such contained egalitarian
elements.
According to Stuurman (2004, 2005) a history of equality can be written which
focuses on ‘equality-effects’ in discourses and texts that express notions and
thoughts of equality without necessarily using the term equality as such. Referring to
a concept of Wittgenstein, Stuurman argues that there are ‘family resemblances’
between equality-discourses and concepts in different languages and historical
contexts. Equality can be expressed in a rational Enlightenment discourse, but also in
mythical or religious discourses. ‘We can recognize affinities and parallels. (...)
Stories may suggest similarity and equality without any explicit reference to them.’
(Stuurman, 2004, p. 24-25) Stuurman adds that there is a difference between
equality effects and egalitarianism. ‘(I)t is useful to distinguish between equality and
egalitarianism. Egalitarianism denotes the conscious pursuit of some specific variety
of equality, while discourses and concepts of equality refer to specific senses in
which persons are deemed equal in particular respects. The relation between
equality and egalitarianism is one of potentiality: concepts of equality are not
necessary egalitarian. On the other hand it is obvious that ideas of equality can easily
spill over into egalitarian discourses,’ which hold that when things are alike they
should ‘receive similar treatment’. (p. 26; and see Stuurman, 2004a)
In line with Stuurman we can thus argue that egalitarian- and / or equality-effects
can be brought about through a diversity of texts and stories in different historical
contexts. However, building on Foucault’s thoughts on ethical self-formation, we can
add that it is not only possible to bring these effects about through texts and stories,
but through a life as well.
From this perspective the life of the eighth century mystic Rabia clearly expresses
egalitarian effects. Rabia was a slave freed at later age, and as such could lead an
independent life as a woman. Gradually, she developed into a highly respected
spiritual and intellectual leader. She consistently rejected the many marriage
proposals she received, with words such as: ‘God can give me all you offer and even
double it. It does not please me to be distracted from Him for a single moment. So
farewell.’ (Smith, 1984, p. 11) Rabia thus consciously pursued an independent
lifestyle as a woman, a path that many female Sufi mystics followed. Her own
contribution to Sufism lies in her call to not be lead by traditions, but to develop a
personal, unselfish relationship with God. To a male Sufi mystic that tried to surpass
her piety she said: ‘You traversed [the desert] in ritual prayer, but I with personal
supplication.’ (p. 9) About another Sufi she said: ‘(Y)es, Sufyan would be a good
man, if he did not love the Traditions.’ (p. 16) She tried amongst other things, to
realize her ideal of a personal and unselfish relationship with God through a severe
asceticism, but in actual fact made her whole life into ‘her plainest teaching on this
subject’. (p. 59) There is a well known story of how she walked the streets of Basra
with a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. ‘She said: I am going to
light fire in Paradise and to pour water on to Hell so that both veils (...) may
completely disappear (...) and the servants of God may see Him, without any object
of hope or motive of fear. What if the hope of Paradise and the fear of Hell did not
exist?’ (p. 99) Here again Rabia emphasizes that all people should love God not as a
matter of calculation but on the basis of a personal, unselfish relationship. (p. 98)
With all its strict asceticism and emphasis on submission to God, the life of Rabia
obviously entails egalitarian effects. Not only her careful preservation of her life as an
independent woman, but also her position as a female intellectual and spiritual
leader, her standing up for this position, and her emphasis on everyone’s personal
relationship with God, imply an egalitarianism because the equal status and a similar
treatment of men and women are validated. The high-spiritedness with which Rabia
put the men around her in their place also has an egalitarian effect. Rabia did not
literally speak about the equality of men and women and it would be foolish to
identify her as a feminist. (See also Van Beek, 2002) However, her life did not fit the
patterns for women in the context of Islam in her time, but followed its own free
path. This is also the conclusion of Muslim feminist Leila Ahmed, who argues that
Rabia lived a free life, retaining ‘full control and legal autonomy with respect to
herself in that she is neither wife, nor slave, nor under any male authority’. Ahmed
concludes that ‘the beliefs on which feminism rests are an endemic part of Islamic
civilization (just as they are an endemic part of Western civilization before the
development of the political idiom of democracy)’. (Ahmed, 1989, p. 149, p. 144)
She reports on how feminism was imported since the beginning of the last century in
Egypt and Iran by Western colonizers in opposition to the Islamic tradition. (Ahmed
1992) The emerging discourse of Islamic feminism wants to get rid of the colonial
history and connotation of the feminist project. From this perspective the Qur’an is
reread by women scholars who emphasize equality notions in the text, notably in
passages in which women are explicitly addressed as spiritual and responsible
beings, and in which women are called upon to educate themselves. (See Wadud,
1999; Barlas, 2002) The egalitarian movement of ‘Islamic feminism’ makes use of
such readings of the Qur’an but can also make use of exemplary lives of women
throughout the history of Islam which express egalitarian effects, such as that of
Rabia, as is shown by Ahmed. Concrete research could reveal that egalitarian-effects
such as these, might be found in the lives of a number of women in Islamic contexts.
(6)
If we turn, finally, once again to the lives of the orthodox women that were studied
by Mahmood, Bracke and Longman, we can conclude that even if these lives do not
contain egalitarian effects, they do express certain equality-effects.
The orthodox religious women in these studies live according to a system of absolute
truths, to which they subject themselves and others. In that sense we are dealing
here with ‘fundamentalism’. (7) But we also find practices and vocabularies among
these women that show that they don’t feel themselves inferior to men on a spiritual
level and that as such do express notions of equality of men and women. However,
these equality-effects don’t spill over in the belief that women are entitled to receive
similar treatment as men do. Women in these orthodox movements as well as those
in outspoken political-religious movements can be labelled agents rather than
feminists, as they actively subject themselves and other women to the authority of
men. The emerging discourse of ‘Islamic feminism’ is outspoken in its demand for
the egalitarian treatment of men and women, fighting for ‘gender justice’ within the
context of Islam. The women that spoke in the studies of Mahmood and Bracke will
perhaps be influenced by these new notions, and extend their ethical self-formation
to an ethical self-governance, such that their lives will entail not only equality- but
egalitarian-effects as well.

Dr. Karen Vintges is a university lecturer of Political and Social Philosophy in the
Department of Philosophy of the University of Amsterdam. She is co-editor of a book
about feminism and Foucault (D.Taylor & K.Vintges (eds.), Feminism and the Final
Foucault, Illinois University Press, 2004), author of Philosophy as Passion. The
Thinking of Simone de Beauvoir (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1996,
originally in Dutch, 1992), and of several other books in Dutch. She was (co)
organiser of the conference ‘Women and Islam: New Perspectives’ with Amina
Wadud, Ziba Mir-Hosseini and others, in Amsterdam 2005. Currently she is working
on a project entitled: ‘Rewriting The Second Sex From a Global Perspective’.
Notes (kop)

(1) Rabia’s life and works are discussed by Margareth Smith, Rabi’a the Mystic
and her Fellow-Saints in Islam, 1984, originally published in 1928.
(2) As is shown by Sarah Bracke in her article in this volume.
(3) See Longman, 2004, Bracke, 2004, and Mahmood, 2005 and 2001, and
Bracke and Longman in this volume.
(4) See Vintges, 2003.
(5) In the quotes that follow I have omitted the Arab terms which Mahmood
inserted in her text.
(6) We find Muslim women throughout the history of Islam, as scholars,
politicians and spiritual leaders. (See Bewley, 1999) More in depth research on
their lives is necessary from this perspective.
(7) Secular fundamentalism equally is about the belief in absolute Truths and the
urge to disseminate these and impose them on others.

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