Reflections on Zainab al-Ghazali’s Return of the Pharaoh

Reflections on Zainab al-Ghazali’s Return of the Pharaoh Introduction The empire of misconceptions and stereotypes about the status of women in Islam misleads most research about revivalist and fundamentalist groups in Islam. The very effective participation of women in many Islamist groups is mostly neglected and their leadership positions are ignored. Yet women have played a prominent socio-political role in the Islamic world since the time of early Islam, including direct involvement in the Prophet’s missionary efforts. To mention a few examples: the first martyr in Islam was a woman, Sumayya. The first believer in Muhammad was Muhammad’s wife Khadija, who devoted her wealth entirely to spreading the word of Islam. Early female Muslims were among the first mohajireen (immigrants to Ethiopia), and often accompanied mujahideen (holy knights of Allah) in jihad. Later, the Prophet’s wife Aisha and his daughter Fatima played significant roles in shaping both the Caliphate and Imamate concepts at the core of Sunni and Shia Islam. The granddaughter of the Prophet, Zainab, played a role rivaling that of Muhammad’s grandson Husain ibn Ali in ensuring survival of the memory of the Battle of Karbala. Also, the way secular modern governments appreciate women’s social and political participation is characterized by similar misconceptions. For the same lack of historical and religious knowledge, most secular and modern governments in Islamic societies try to promote women’s rights by ignoring the inner potentials within Islam to advocate Women Rights. Among its other virtues, Zainab al-Ghazali’s Return of the Pharaoh: Memoir in Nasir’s Prison goes a long way toward rectifying this distorted focus. What is more, this book shows how an anti-Islamist government forgot the rule of law in dealing with Islamist groups - still a significant issue in our historical moment. Narration The “Pharaoh” in the book’s title is Egypt’s second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser (Jamal Abd al-Nasir, 1918-1970), the champion of Arab nationalism and the Founder of post-monarchic Egypt, and its primary aim is to illustrate how the despotic and totalitarian Nasser was in his manner of handling Islamic opponents, political colleagues, and, in particular, the book’s author, Zainab al-Ghazali al-Jubaili (1917-2005), founder and leader of Egypt’s Muslim Ladies Group (MLG). The book begins with an account of a serious car accident that Zainab was involved in, understood by later authors as a plot by Nasser to do her in; it continues with descriptions of her arrest for activism in 1965 and of the severe torture she and her allies were made to suffer in prison at the hands of the government, and ends with Zainab’s release from prison in 1971. The book’s main argument consists of four assertions: 1) that Nasir’s government was anti-Islam; 2) that torture under his regime was brutal and severe; 3) that prisoners in Nasser’s prisons, including Zainab, were not shielded by the rule of law; and 4) that Nasser’s intelligence 1 service was surrounded with a conspiracy theory about Islamist groups and their agendas, particularly, to assassinate Nasser. Zainab al-Ghazali was an Islamist Da’iya (female participant in Islamic preaching) who was a leader in providing social services to the needy and unfortunate. It is said that her weekly lectures to women, held at the Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo, attracted audiences of three to five thousand people. The Muslim Ladies Group that she founded and led is believed to have had a national membership of three million throughout the country by the time it was dissolved by the government in 1964. In addition to educating girls, this charitable organization rendered service to orphans, the poor, and the underprivileged. Zainab’s allegiance to Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as her efforts both to promote the Muslim Brotherhood and establish her own organization, made Zainab one of the most controversial female Muslim figures of 20th century. Some consider her a Muslim feminist, since she worked hard to give women an awareness of their rights within an Islamic context, and was dedicated to the improvement of the status of women and their social empowerment. Others argue that there was some inconsistency between her words and her practices, for her words largely define women as wives and mothers, but in practice she was very active in public and political institutions. Zainab quickly divorced her first husband because of his attempts to impede her socio-religious activities. Her firm dedication to al-da’wah (preaching and drawing people to Islam) led her to include the condition, in her second marriage contract, that her new husband could not prohibit her activism. If a conflict of interest were to arise between her family and her political interest in establishing an Islamic state, she would be allowed to end her marriage. This testifies not only to her commitment to the Islamist movement, but also to her belief in the personal agency of wives and of women generally. Spending five years being tortured in prison did not change Zainab. In 1965, she was sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor, but was released in 1971, whereupon she resumed work as the editor of the women's and children's section of the Muslim Brotherhood's magazine, Al-Dawah. Zainab’s prison memoir, Ayyām min ḥayātī ("Days from my life"), written to inspire fellow Muslims in their resistance against government wrong-doing, was first published in Arabic in 1989. This English translation by Mokrane Guezzou, published by the Islamic Foundation in 2006, consists of seven chapters. Also, the English version of the book is introduced by the translator, a Research Fellow at the Islamic Foundation, UK, with many translations of Islamic thought and Sufism. Also, in the introduction of the translator, the reader can find a concise account of the Muslim brotherhood and its evolution up to Zainab’s time. Following al-Banni, the introduction, describes eight essential characteristics of the Muslim Brotherhood: (a) the Salafi message; (b) the Sunni path; (c) Sufi reality; (d) political organization; (e) its organization as a sporting group; (f) as a scientific and cultural league; (g) as an economic enterprise; and (h) its social endeavor. These features represent Islam in its entirety, they believed. These keywords give the reader a concise understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood and where to look at in order to comprehend the organization’s originality and complexity. 2 The book has recently attracted fresh attention from scholars because of new interests and initiatives to study Islamists. The first two chapters of the book discuss the background to Zainab’s arrest, the relationship between MLG and the Muslim Brotherhood, and Zainab’s pledge of allegiance to al-Banna and her contact with the Islamist poet and activist Sayyid Qutb (pp. 5-42). The remainder of the book describes in detail her time in Egyptian military prison and in the all-women’s prison of al-Qanatir on charges of sedition and conspiring to assassinate President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Zainab recounts in detail her terrible treatment on prison, which included being locked up in a room filled with water or with dogs in a cell, being whipped thousands of times, being hung up by the hands, and being kept hungry and thirsty, as well as rape attempts meant to get her to confess an assassination attempt on President Nasser. She was also tempted with positive incentives to confess to wrongdoing: becoming a member of Nasser’s cabinet, or minister of the Social Affairs; receiving a monthly salary and funding for her magazine and organization. Reflections This volume is one of the rare books presenting a first-hand description of an Islamist leader who dealt with the hardships of persecution and prison. It is unique in having been written by a female activist who was directly involved in political action and who was accused of political assassination. It also provides the reader with a detailed picture of what went on in Nasser’s nationalist government in the name of modern values. Gamal Abdel Nasser took a personal interest in her case. Many times and at various moments several people in the prison introduced themselves as representatives of Nasser empowered to negotiate with Zainab. Once, the interrogations even happened in front of Nasser himself. The author offers details about the prosecuting attorneys and how they tried to put words in her mouth, how she was not allowed to choose her attorney, and how the legal system was corrupt. The significant gap between the religious language of Zainab and the political language of the interrogators is highlighted very clearly. Many times, the answers do not match the questions. For example, the prosecutors are looking for a particular answer, concrete replies, and clear statements: for example, about whether Zainab considered Nasser Kafir (an unbeliever). Zainab’s answers are very universal and fit meta-doctrines which can be interpreted in a different way. Indeed, the difference between an ideological approach and bureaucratic attitude is explicit. On one side is a regular political agent and on the other side an idealist religious activist. One very appealing aspect of this book is that the author shares her spiritual achievements, characteristics and states as well as her political engagements and daily travails. She confesses not only that her Islamic ideology and beliefs helped her to remain resistant and steadfast throughout her periods of hardship, but also that many dreams and visions came to her during this time. Many of these happened at especially difficult junctures: when for example her second husband was forced to divorce her, she had a vision of the Prophet. These visions provided comfort to Zainab and helped to remain faithful. She had many verses of the Quran memorized and often quoted them in her replies to interrogators. These visions, memorized Quranic verses, and multiple 3