Zahra Kamalkhani - Womens Islam

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WOMENS ISLAM

WOMENS ISLAM

Religious practice among women in
todays Iran

Zahra Kamalkhani

First published in 1998 by
Kegan Paul International

This edition first published in 2010 by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Zahra Kamalkhani, 1998

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 10: 0-7103-0599-0 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-7103-0599-2 (hbk)

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. The publisher has made every effort to contact original copyright olders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

Acknowledgments

This book is based on my Ph.D. thesis, and I am grateful to those who emotionally, financially, intellectually and practically have supported me on my way to complete this work. I am grateful to the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities (NAVF), for the doctoral and publication grant. The Social Science Faculty and The Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen for publication grants and providing me with office and research facilities.

I am grateful to Professor Reidar Grnhaug, for his advice, and support throughout my research work at University of Bergen, to Dr Shahla Haeri for her many constructive comments, to Professor Erika Friedl, and Dr. Fulya Atacan for critical reading of the earlier draft of the manuscript. My thanks go to several other colleagues, Senior Researcher Karin Ask, Dr Knut Vikor, Professor Leif Manger, Tor Skudal who suggested useful comments on an earlier draft of this work. I thank Professor Reidar Grnhaug, Kjell Soleim and Professor Alan Black for supporting me in my academic career.

My highest appreciation goes to my mother who gave me inspiration and for her company in the field and her emotional support. For his concern, I thank my husband, Dr Hoshang Lahooti, who shared with me the pleasure and uphill struggle of becoming an academic person in the host country in Norway. In an effort to express my love and hope for the future, I dedicate this book to my daughter Ghazal and my son Maziar.

One

Introduction

In this book I will focus on two socio-cultural domains the family and religious activity in the lives of Iranian women. Women maintain the integrity of the household, while at the same time taking part in wider social activities. With this background I explore the religious practice among todays Shirazi women, its transcendental and pragmatic aspects, specifying womens performance in religious rituals.

At My Fathers Home

The main reason for choosing my home city of Shiraz, in southwestern Iran, as a setting for my research was not simply a matter of research convenience.1 I anticipated that the quest would be both emotionally and methodologically challenging. A combination of my education and experience in exotic Europe made it possible for me to observe my home country with a new consciousness and comparative insight. Political insecurity, war and economic barriers had hindered such a visit until 1989.

The return to my fathers home after ten years abroad was for me as dramatic an experience as it might be for a foreign visitor coming to Iran for the first time. I returned to my fathers home as a married, educated daughter of the family. My position was such that I was independent, and yet my children and I were still under the protection of my parents. Soon after my arrival I found myself to be engaged in sets of relations which were important to my parents, relatives and acquaintances, and gradually I became incorporated into their everyday activities and concerns. These social relations included, among others, activities such as religious rituals and exchanges of visits.

The visiting pattern of my community was such that from the day of my arrival, close and distant relatives came to pay tribute to my family and to welcome me home. I was welcomed with gifts of flowers, or small Iranian handicrafts thought to be of interest to those living abroad, and even a tray of homemade bread baked by my childhood nanny. Then it was my duty to return their visits, whether in response to an invitation, or at my own initiative. For those who were closest to my family I brought some small gifts from abroad. A customary pattern of mutual visits, with or without gifts, kept a balance of reciprocity in social relations and value exchanges. I could not give a gift in return to all my relatives, but my mother, who often intervened to protect my social honour, made excuses, arguing that I was a student.

My original research proposal was not concerned with the study of womens religion, but soon I learned that women were engaged in important religious activity that until then had escaped my attention. On the second day of my arrival I participated in the annual memorial service (sar-sl) of a close relative in which the entire Qurnic chapter of anm (Qurn: 6) was recited. One of the female preachers, who was a distant relative, was impressed by my interest and invited me to attend her Qurnic meetings further.

Subsequently I participated in several Qurnic meetings led by my distant relative. The meetings were usually held in a small room in a private home packed with up to twenty women, some bringing their school-age daughters and young sons as well. There I was informed about other religious meetings, and soon I became interested in the way these meetings were performed, interrelated, organised and led by women. Eventually I began to participate on a regular basis.

Coming from Europe to be a Qurnic Student?

The women in my surroundings found my curiosity and regular questions on Islamic matters both admirable and puzzling. Some of my upper-middle and middle-class relatives, who were less involved in religious matters, were particularly puzzled by my interest in spending hours at religious meetings on hot summer days when the temperature often reached 42 C. Some thought that I should rather go window shopping with them, or visit relatives. By contrast others, who were engaged in religious activities and took part in religious meetings and Qurnic lessons, admired my interest and were willing to take me wherever they went.

Despite not sharing many of the views of my informants, the fact that I am an Iranian and have lived half of my life in Iran provided me with a guideline for pursuing my anthropological inquiries in a more native manner. I carried out my study independently of official authorities. I was able to come into contact with women with different degrees of religious beliefs and involvement, and I participated with them in as many social and religious events as possible. I expressed to the women I met daily a willingness to attend events to which I was invited, or which were open to the public.

I felt a series of rights and duties towards my relatives quite apart from my academic research plan. As a mother with two children aged 7 and 10, I experienced and shared some of the social constraints typical for Iranian mothers, such as spending a lot of time in crowded clinics, or queuing up to purchase parents ration goods. However, having a mother and sisters nearby reduced my work with my children, enabling me to move more freely and with less worry. I also spent much of my free time visiting other families and female friends in social and religious events.

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