ISLA 210 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Quran, Islam, Hijab
12 Oct 2018
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ISLA 210
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
ISLA 210
Week 3 – Lecture 1
Readings: Women and Gender in Islam p. 9-38
Last week
5 pillars of Islam
- Shahada: Faith.
- Salat: Prayer.
- )akāt: Charit.
- Sawm: Fasting.
- Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca
First four Caliphs: Au Bakr, Uar, Utha ad Ali
- The Shiites believe that Hidden number 12th of the descendances, Imam disappeared in 872
- Imams were believed to be divine
- They had intentionally avoided Ali to participate in the election of the successor
- They appropriated Islam and changed the rules for their own benefit; they selected what they
ated fro Isla ad disarded hat the didt at to fit the iterests of the elite of Mea
- Social conscious what does the idea mean for everyone, everyone has their own interpretation
of each concept
- Dominant social values in the movie of last class: honour is the most important one
o Why honour, what is it? Woman are the symbol of honour. We have to protect our
woman bc we have to protect our honour. Woman are a big part of reproduction, of
procreation. When it comes to private property, before Islam, every member of a tribe
has an equal right to use the property. Women became the symbol of honour based on
private property.
o What would be a major revolutionary move that society underwent bc of Islam, on
woman: infanticide was banned, illegal. The right to own, slavery become illegal,
women and men were now equal, spiritually, under Islam. Loyalty before Islam was to
the tribe, but now it went to God.
- Today the Arabian Peninsula is constituted of 7 countries
- The most important cities of the peninsula were Khaybar, Medina, Uhud, Badr, Hudaybiyya,
ea ad Taif
- Mesopotamia was the heart
- Byzantine, Sasanid, Arabian, Ethiopian and Greek civilisations were important
- Question film 8: how did it reach Europe? They were able to transport their culture to
Europeans through scientific processes
- The message of the film is that they spread the word, the culture, people take from a culture
and give back
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Leila Ahmed: notes about the book (p.9-38)
The pre-Islamic Middle east and Androcentrism
The major theme is androcentrism: centered around men, male dominance
- God has created women as being weaker than men, biologically inferior (Plato)
- It was a concept that was everywhere: Byzantium, romans, Sissanti, greek, and some extent, the
Egyptians
- Weirdly enough, in Asia Minor, women had a dominant position: paintings were found on
numerous shrines where female figures were the main focus.
- Ancient societies of the region show that supremacy of a goddess figure and elevated status for
women were the rule rather than the exception
- Gerda Lerner: the importance of increasing the population and providing labor power in early
societies led to the theft of women, whose sexuality and reproductive capacity became the first
propert that tries opeted for
- Key point of the decline of position of women after the Iranian conquests of Mesopotamia:
women could no longer serve as a witness
The military and the temple elite
- The growth of complex urban societies and the increasing importance of military
competitiveness further entrenched male dominance and gave rise to a class-based society in
which the military and temple elites made up the propertied class
- Priests, merchants
- They made the upper class, those who own property
- Own dominance of the concept that women are weak: the patriarchy system, they established
it
- Patriarchal family designed to guarantee the paternity of property-heirs and vesting in men the
control of female sexuality
- The ai is to otrol oes seualit
o Property of men (father, then husband)
o The way they dress, taste, their position in the family, in the market, society
o Public vs private space private is the household, public is everything beyond the
household
o Everything in the public should be controlled by the state, and so the elite (military,
temple elite and rich merchants)
- Female sexual purity (virginity)
o It became negotiable and an economically valuable property
o This is what led to the emergence of prostitution and the enforcement of a demarcation
between respectable women (wives), meaning that their sexuality belonged to only one
man, and women who were sexually available to any man
The harem system
- Harem = woman
- The elite, military and rich could own large numbers of harem including wives and concubines
- Concubines belonged to people, they could be sold and bought
- Veiling was the symbol of their class: signified the class and social background
o Working class, peasants, slaves didt ear a eil
o Veiling would classify women according to their sexual activity and signaled to men
which women were under male protection and which were fair game
o It would signify her status in her relationship with the head of the harem, if she was a
wife/concubine (taken) or sexually available to any men
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
