Marriage and Silences

This chapter assesses Fawwaz’s writings on marriage, divorce, and family life, 1892‒1900. In stand-alone essays and a long-running debate with a customs official, published in the journal Fursat al-awqat, Fawwaz addressed the exploitation of late versions of Islamic fiqh (jurisprudence) and its hadith sources, and the fiction of the Islamic basis of extreme seclusion, as patriarchal mechanisms to keep women subordinate and unhappy in marriage. It assesses the reformist views of Muhammad ‘Abduh while arguing that Fawwaz focused less on legal change and more on the prevalence of misogynistic views in the marital relationship that maintained the hegemony of patriarchal social organization. In her debate with Husayn Fawzi, Fawwaz used logic, arguments from history, and knowledge of Islamic sources to reject his understanding of gender, based on his reading of the creation story, Qur’an, and hadith, and medieval marriage manuals. This debate centred on marriage but went beyond it to explore Islamic understandings of gender difference.