Colonialism, modernity, and Muslim-majority countries

COLONIALISM, MODERNITY, AND MUSLIM-MAJORITY COUNTRIES

Colonialism:

a political-economic phenomenon whereby various European nations explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large areas of the world. The age of modern colonialism began around 1500, following the European discoveries of a sea route around Africa’s southern coast and of America.

By discovery, conquest, and settlement, nations like Portugal, Spain, England, France, and the Dutch Republic colonized throughout the world, spreading European institutions and culture.

Colonialism in 1914, on the eve of World War I

MENA countries under European rule in the 20th century

Language, Culture, and Education under European Colonial Rule

Huda Shaarawi, like most elite women of her time, was multilingual. Her social language was French, her maternal language was Turkish, and her paternal and national language was Arabic.

This dual language identity continues still in many post-colonial states (e.g., Lebanon, India)

From the 18th century onward, the early colonial powers – Portugal and Spain – began to take a backseat to the rising colonial powers – particularly England and France.

Thus, British and French culture began to be seen as a mark of global high culture

This was reinforced by British and French educational systems that were set up in colonized territories

Native languages, cultures, and religions were increasingly pushed to the private sphere of the home

Huda Shaarawi, Egyptian feminist and nationalist (1879-1947)

Born into elite, international Cairo society

Turko-Circassian and Egyptian heritage

Traveled frequently to Europe and other parts of the Ottoman Empire

Part of last generation to experience harem life in Egypt

Introduction

1923, Huda and Saiza Nabarawi returning from an international feminist meeting in Rome

Historic act of unveiling “ends” the harem system in Egypt

Here, pictured in Rome, as the delegation from Egypt

What is a Harem?

Harem

Section of the house where women and children conducted their daily lives

Private area of the home, secluded from the public area

Also can signify a man’s wife or wives Veiling in public a form of “portable seclusion” These private areas were common throughout the

Middle East and other parts of Asia Having a harem was a desirable sign of social and

economic prestige The difference of urban and rural, upper and lower

classes

Egyptian women in 1920s Egypt, public and private

Ottoman students at the Imperial High School

(ca. 1890s)

Ottoman Schoolgirls (ca. 1880s)

Select Timeline of Movements for Women’s Rights in America

1821 - Emma Hart Willard founds the Troy Female Seminary in New York--the first endowed school for girls

1833 - Oberlin College becomes the first coeducational college in the United States.

1848 - The first women's rights convention in the United States is held in Seneca Falls, New York. Many participants sign a "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions" that outlines the main issues and goals for the emerging women's movement. Thereafter, women's rights meetings are held on a regular basis.

1872 - Susan B. Anthony is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York, for attempting to vote for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election.

1920 - The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified. Its victory accomplished, its organization becomes the nucleus of the League of Women Voters.

1923 - The National Woman's Party first proposes the Equal Rights Amendment to eliminate discrimination on the basis of gender. (It has never been ratified.)

Source: One Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview, Library of Congress

Timeline of Movements for Women’s Rights in Egypt

1832 – under Muhammad Ali, ruler of Egypt from 1805-1849, a school was opened to train women as medical assistants

1860s – prominent Egyptian politicians write treatises in favor of women’s education

1873 – First state school for girls, Siufiyya School, opens 1924 – Girls from The New Women Society publically

protest and demand women’s rights at the opening of the new Egyptian Parliament

1956 – Women gets the right to vote

Huda and Feminism in Muslim-majority Countries

Huda was born into this revolutionary, anti-colonial world in Egypt, just as scholars throughout Asia were theorizing new forms of identity and resistance and unity against European colonial dominance.

She fought this battle through women’s emancipation, thereby also fighting the traditional patriarchy in her own country.

Others redoubled on these traditional patriarchal norms to further underscore differentiation from the west with its exploitative tendencies.

On Islam, Modernity, and Culture

“Islam was for centuries, in its setting, a marvellous instrument of progress. Today it is a clock which has lost time and which must be made to catch up.”

Fuad Pasha, official in the Ottoman Empire in mid-1800s Istanbul

Another young Ottoman, Ziya Pasha, complained:

“Islam, they say, is a stumbling block to the progress of the State

this story was not known before and now it is the fashion.

Forgetting our religious loyalty in all our affairs

Following Frankish ideas is now the fashion.”

Jamal al-Afghani

1838-1897 has been considered ‘father of

Islamic modernism.’ Shia Muslim from Iran who posed as

Sunni, active in India, Afghanistan, and Egypt

saw that European imperial powers in the Middle East (as well as India and abroad) systematically carried away the wealth of Eastern societies as well as disrespected their autonomy as human beings by launching military occupations of their countries.

develops a discourse that seeks to unite Muslims against European imperialism.

Beginning of “pan-Islamism”

Al-Afghani and Pan-Islamism

1892, al-Afghani in a letter to the Ottoman sultan, Abdulhamid II, that the Western powers: “all have only one desire, that of making our land disappear up to our last trace. And in this there is no distinction to make between Russia, England, Germany, or France, especially if they perceive our weakness and our impotence to resist their designs. If, on the contrary, we are united, if the Muslims are a single man, we can then be of harm and of use our voice be heard.”

Pan-Islamism became a viable alternative for those disaffected by Westernisation, for either political, economic, nationalist, or even sometimes religious reasons.