Final Study Guide - Professor Zehra Arat PDF

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Professor Zehra Arat...

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I. IN-CLASS PART. (63 points) This part will focus on factual information and include truefalse, multiple-choice, matching names/concepts with their definitions, and short-answer questions. In addition to the terms, names and issues listed on the midterm exam guidelines, you should know the following and their relevance to gendering, gender construction, and women’s lives and status:

Major Muslim Empires ● The Rashidun Caliphate - the first four Rightly Guided caliphs: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali ● Arab Dynasties - ***These two were the first dynastic empires; set the grounds for what came to be known as Muslim rule, norms, etc. ○ The Umayyad (661-750) ■ Damascus = capital ■ Known for their vigilance in extending the Islamic border ■ Muawiyah ruled in 661, after Ali’s assassination ● Challenged Ali; had a battle ○ Ali won, but did not enact full revenge - reached a truce ■ Some of Ali’s followers were upset about this and assassinated him because he did not (kharijites) ● Declared himself the caliph after Ali’s death ■ Yazid I (conflict with Husayn/Husein); Battle of Karbala (680) ● Muawiyah’s son ● His caliphate was contested by Muhammad’s grandson (Ali’s son), Husayn ○ Husayn’s older brother, Hasan, waived his right to become the caliph after his father’s death ● The second fitna is the Battle of Karbala ○ Yazid’s troops massacred Husayn and his family - wiped out Ali’s male line ● Yazid - in Turkish culture this is not used as a name, but as a noun meaning a person who is of no use and is diabolical ○ The Abbasids (750-1258) ■ Capital is Baghdad ■ Established after the dissent of one of the prophet’s uncles, Abas ● After Muhammad died, the first four caliphs in the Sunnite tradition were political and religious leaders that would issue decrees; after the Umayyads, the title of caliph became a symbolic title: it is a titular aspect of the Sunnite Muslim world, but it is a symbolic title now; these caliphs didn’t have the religious depth/knowledge ● Turkic Dynasties (16th Century)

○ The Ottomans (13th Century - 1919) - North Africa, Eastern Europe, Western/Central Middle East ■ 1517: took the title of the caliph (after the conquering of Egypt) ● Caliphate moved from the Arab world to the Turkish dynasty ■ 1924: the Republic of Turkey abolished caliphate and there have been no caliphs since ■ Started as a fiefdom; small empire at first, until they expanded their borders, established a state and later an empire, and conquered Egypt in 1517 ■ Lost the first world war to the French/British ● Ottoman lands were invaded by the Allies ■ Gave way to a Turkish nationalist movement, was also against the Sultan (seen as weak and accommodating the invaders) ○ The Safavids (1501-1722/36) - Iran and parts of Afghanistan ○ The Mughal (1526-1757) - India and Pakistan ■ The name Mughal is reminiscent of Mongol - because they were so terrifying, after a while people would just give up fighting; by assuming this name, they cast fear within people and could easily conquer other lands ■ Political conflict and competition ■ When they were engaged, they claimed to be fighting for God ○ Religion as a legitimizing device ● Persian and Byzantine Empires: ○ These aristocracies practiced veiling and segregation of the sexes

The League of Nations ● The League of Nations (1920) was an international organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, created after the First World War to provide a forum for resolving international disputes ● Mandate, an authorization granted by the League of Nations to a member nation to govern a former German or Turkish colony ● Following the defeat of Germany and Ottoman-Turkey in World War I, their Asian and African possessions, which were judged not yet ready to govern themselves, were distributed among the victorious Allied powers. The mandate system was a compromise between the Allies’ wish to retain the former German and Turkish colonies and their pre-Armistice declaration (November 5, 1918) that annexation of territory was not their aim in the war. The mandates were divided into three groups on the basis of their location and their level of political and economic development and were then assigned to individual Allied victors (mandatory powers, or mandatories). ○ Class A mandates consisted of the former Turkish provinces of Iraq, Syria,

Lebanon, and Palestine. These territories were considered sufficiently advanced that their provisional independence was recognized, though they were still subject to Allied administrative control until they were fully able to stand alone. Iraq and Palestine (including modern Jordan and Israel) were assigned to Great Britain, while Turkish-ruled Syria and Lebanon went to France. All Class A mandates had reached full independence by 1949. ○ Class B mandates consisted of the former German-ruled African colonies of Tanganyika, parts of Togoland and the Cameroons, and Ruanda-Urundi. The Allied powers were directly responsible for the administration of these mandates but were subject to certain controls intended to protect the rights of the mandates’ native peoples. Tanganyika (which is now part of Tanzania) was assigned to Britain , while most of the Cameroons and Togoland were assigned to France, and Ruanda-Urundi (now Rwanda and Burundi) went to Belgium. ○ Class C mandates consisted of various former German-held territories that mandatories subsequently administered as integral parts of their territory: South West Africa (now Namibia, assigned to South Africa), New Guinea (assigned to Australia), Western Samoa (now Samoa, assigned to New Zealand), the islands north of the Equator in the western Pacific (Japan), and Nauru (Australia, with Britain and New Zealand).

Different forms of western imperialism and their expression in Muslim populated lands ● Imperialism = one power exerts its influence on another state or nation ○ Any system that involves control of a territory or its people by a foreign power ■ Often a state, but could be a corporation (East India Trading Company) ● Exercise power through own nationals ● Direct form ○ Conquest of territory ○ Integration of that territory into the land of the imperial power ○ Direct rule over the territory and its people ● Indirect form ○ Does not necessarily involve conquest and annexation ○ Involved making the governments of the controlled territories controlled and manipulated, forced into implementing policies that served the interest of the imperial power ● Two types of imperialism: ○ Classical ■ Beginning of civilizations ■ Practically every civilization became an imperial power at one time or

another ● Athenian (Greek), Roman, Chinese, Aztec, Zulu, Ottomans ■ Exercised direct rule ● Conquered and annexed adjacent territory ● Made the new land an integrated part ○ Dynastic - served to the interests of dynasty, enriching it ○ Modern/Western ■ 16th century ■ Direct and indirect forms ● Direct form = colonialism ○ Clear distinction of original and control power: motherland vs. “other”/child, subjugated ■ Control of territory overseas ■ British empire - didn’t see the sunset, had territory all around the world ■ Created a distinction between the original/imperial power and the controlled territory ■ Nationalistic ● Expansion glorified mother country; served the interest of the motherland ● Often exploitative - taxation, etc. ■ Modern/Western imperialism is used interchangeably because all modern imperialism is carried out by Western powers (all except Japan) - Western Europe, USA ○ Two forms co-existed ■ Empires existed in 16th century while Modern imperialism was taking place, but they operated on different grounds ● Extraterritoriality ○ Immunity from the laws of the land for imperial power; British man visiting China would be immune to Chinese law, etc. ● Africa: rapid claims and independence ○ Fully conquered in 1910, fully independent by 2002 ● Middle East ○ Perception: Arab countries have been under Turkish control for 600 years Western powers will assist in their governance (“guided”) because they have no experience in self-governance ● Muslims ○ Subject to direct and indirect rule ● Missionary women tried to teach Muslim women

○ Education, etc. ○ Considered a salvation, an improvement ○ The veil made Muslim women mysterious - missionary women wanted to uncover them along with their secret ● Daughters of darkness ○ Veiled women ● Daughters of sorrow ○ Christians that were considered barbarous ○ Non-Protestant Christians - close to salvation, but not quite ■ Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox ■ Protestantism is the true religion that all should subscribe to ■ Missionary women of the Protestant Church are the enlightened ones, which they try to share with their denied “sisters” ● Colonial/Imperial Justifications ○ Colonizing = the White Man’s Burden - obligation to spread civilization, advancement, for the betterment of the world ○ Spreading the true religion ○ Social Darwinism - survival of the fittest/most superior civilizations and cultures; as the superior civilization, they have the right to rule and dominate others ● Merchants/Investors, The State, and The Church ○ Sometimes in conflict, but also unified ○ All three subscribed to the notion of the civilizing mission ● Basci’s ultimate argument: ○ Intentions of the American missionary women ■ More political than moral/religious ■ Gives them agency over another group, as they are oppressed as women themselves ■ Westernization ■ Strengthening of the patriarchy and its ideals, etc. ○ Breaks boundaries for these women ■ New non-traditional role for the average American Christian woman ● More than mothers, wives, etc. ■ Liberating ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Gave them agency over another oppressed group - superiority Independence “Helping” and the mission itself privileged the missionary women Outlet for expression, identity, action Elevation of status

Practice of slavery ● The Quran says that you shouldn’t subject your slave girls to prostitution (implies that this probably happened in Jahiliyya period) ○ References to the merits of freeing slaves ○ Slavery was kept in Islamic tradition, but not particularly endorsed ■ Quran does not forbid, but discourages ○ Slaves were educated and groomed and given as gifts in palace ○ Duty to marry slaves ■ Freed by the time they had children - not born into slavery (can be enslaved as children, but not born into it) ■ Member of household; masters were responsible for future and present of slaves ○ Not intergenerational slavery ● Who could be enslaved? ○ Jahiliyya - Ancient and Medieval times ■ Warfare - captured prisoners of war ■ Piracy - kidnapping and selling ■ Debt - people who owed debts ● Anybody could be a slave - no class, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. factored in ○ Islamiyya ■ Non-believers ● Muslims forbidden from enslaving other Muslims ● The attachment of slavery to inferiority was not Pre-Muslim ○ Greeks enslaved upper echelon of Romans when conquered ● With Islam came… ○ You cannot enslave a person because of debt ○ Warfare would not result in Muslim slavery (Muslims shouldn’t fight each other) ○ Piracy is not condoned ● Conquest ● Impacts wealth ○ In the heydays of the Abbasid Empire (the first 100 years), the empire was so wealthy that they were having difficulty finding people to give Zakat to ● Warfare = wealth; wealth = deterioration of certain mores, decline in women’s status ● The interaction of wealth, slavery, and conquest - what does this mean for gender relations? Gender norms? The status of women?

○ More concubines bought with extra wealth ■ Reducing women’s agency in marriage; men would rather buy someone as a sexual commodity rather than negotiate a marriage contract ● Women as property ○ Usually rulers impose their own concepts on the conquered, but you cannot prevent the exchange of native customs, etc. ● If the Quran doesn’t mention something, does that mean it can be assumed to be permissible? ○ Concubinage - not explicitly mentioned ○ Whatever was available in the Quranic text that would allow one to commit concubinage was used ● Economic system & production structures ○ Household economy - intimacy and closeness ● Typically paid in Islamic tradition - not “free” or unpaid labor ○ Involved ownership along with payment ● Slaves were skilled and trained (sometimes more competent in certain fields); would occasionally establish their own dynasties ○ Mamluk dynasties ■ Slave dynasties - former slaves would acquire power and establish a dynastic rule ■ Ruled for 600 years ■ Absorbed many practices from previous empires ● Devshirme system - The Ottoman Empire ● “To pick or to gather” ○ Acquired booty, slaves after warfare ○ Also periodically (as needed) sent officials from the palace to Christian populated land of the Empire and gathered young (early teens) boys and bring them to the palace; they would be subject to training and education (the dhimmi) ■ ***Merit system*** ■ Those who really excelled would be members of the diwan (cabinet members) ■ More physically fit would be assigned to the janissaries ● Janissaries - royal infantry ○ Lived in barracks until their mid-thirties ■ Those who didn’t meet requirements for top positions were integrated into systems of state bureaucracy ● Bureaucrats - lower level officials, recruiters ■ When recruiters came to he village or town, families would try

to bribe them to pick their son ● See the prospect/possibility for their son ■ Lose contact with family, become part of the palace ● Could give their full loyalty to the palace because they had nowhere else ● Top echelons in governance were often not from the dynasty - would be slaves ○ The closer that you get to the harem, the more power you can gain … the cabinet members would try to marry princesses in the palace ■ The sultan and Mother Sultan would use these marriages to gain the loyalty of the cabinet members ■ Former slaves, then, would be in governance and eventually son-in-laws ● When people are enslaved, because there is supposed to be no coercion to convert to Islamic faith, the recruited boys were technically allowed to retain their religious faith ○ But education/environment usually made them converts ■ By the time they reached the top positions, they were Muslims and were therefore allowed to marry the princesses ● Connection to Ahmed: ○ Mothers and wives are slavewomen too - came from the harem as slavegirls, were trained, educated, and given responsibility ○ Mother Sultan would select the women that she approved of, then the Sultan would select from this bunch ○ Women were prisoners and objectified ■ Sex objects ■ Segregation did give them a niche - purpose ○ Abortion and contraception - a right of women that helps/favors men ○ Patrilineal ■ Inheritance from father’s side ■ Importance of tracing paternity ● Waiting for menstrual cycle - hadith ○ Endorsement of concubinage

Orientalism as an ideology and art genre ● Orientalism: the study of Near, Middle, and Far East ○ Terminology designated Europe as the center - Eurocentric language ○ Alternative meaning: constructing image through literature/art; false, European-constructed notions of the “other” - art based on the European

standard of living ● Term coined by Said as a way of justifying European control and domination ○ These are the lands occupied by inferior people, inferior civilizations Westerners would be bringing the light and the modern superior civilization them - elevating their status, supposedly ○ Westerners constructed their self identity by creating this other ■ Muslim/Turkish women - contradictions ● Dirty but obsessed with cleanliness ● Subjugated victims, yet cunning and manipulative ○ Which side doesn’t matter, as long as whatever is used is considered to be opposite to Westerners ● 19th Century: Orientalism is assumed as the name of an artistic genre ○ Eroticism, over-sexualization ○ Mystify the people involved in the paintings vs. scientific West ○ Realist paintings ■ Many artists have never been there, but depict them as fact ■ Artist gives impression that he’s there - gaze ● But artist could not be there, so close - could not view and interact with Algerian women, they wouldn’t be bare without cover greeting him, etc. ○ Paintings tell us that in private domains of Algerian women it is lazy, idle, relaxed, leisurely ■ Lavish - can afford to live in leisure (red and gold) - ornate lifestyle ■ Hookah - implies women smoke, decadence ■ Baths entertainment, homoesexual relationships, orgy ● Women satisfy each other because men cannot satisfy all at once - implies constant hunger for sexuality ● In reality - Turkish baths are famous; bath culture - in parts of Turkey you had to pay for access, wealthy women would go in parties with neighborhood women women would wrap themselves from breast to knee, there would be dividers where people would actually wash ■ Seduction - selling sex ■ Generic and general titles and definitions implying that they’re all over and all the same

■ General - not official, lounging, lazy, negligent, weak, posture - effeminate ■ Desire for male child - pedophilia, homosexuality ■ Ruins of old civilizations against contemporary occupiers of the land who are not in action but always in lazy, leisurely position - don’t deserve the land ■ Brutality, animalistic, rash

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● Caliphs are this way always ■ Civilized, orderly vs. uncivilized chaos in battle Eugene Delacroix - most famous Orientalist artist Commoditization European male fantasy depicted for the European male gaze “Ball at the Opera” ■ Western - French ■ Shows what happens in the opera house in Paris ● Parisian culture - sex workers mingling with crowd ■ Scandalous and taken down - sexual depiction of Westerners is wrong, npt permissible within culture

Treatment of sexuality ● LGBTQ Identities in Islam ○ The Story of Lot’s Tribe ■ The main offense is not homosexuality, it is defiance and disobedience to Lot/Allah ● Maltreatment of guests ○ Lot’s wife is penalized not because she engages in homosexual relations, but because she was defiant ■ There were men who didn’t fit into the normative gender roles/behaviors and weren’t penalized or rejected ● No record in the oral tradition that the rejected/penalized homosexuality under his rule ● Janissaries ○ The royal infantry ○ Came from the Ottoman palace, guards, prestigious standing army ○ Had to live in barracks ○ Couldn’t get married until retirement ○ Known for their engagement in male-male sex (not with each other) ■ Young male lovers

Prophet

■ Nobody penalized or discharged ■ Common ● No specific laws forbidding homosexuality/criminalization, but there were no protections ○ Sanctioned still ● Not always legal structure ○ Still criminalized due to other structures ■ Normative structures ● Culture ○ Social factors: family ■ Defying gender values: role of man vs. woman; ideal man vs. ideal woman ● Heteronormativity ● Masculinity ● Regional patriarchies - doesn’t happen the same everywhere ● Homophobia ■ Material structures ● Islam/religion exists between legal and normative structures ○ Interacts with both structures ○ Influenced by interpretation, political ideologies ● Secularism in West - Enlightenment ideals ○ Separation of religion/state ○ The more religious you are the less progressive you are ■ Modernization is antagonistic to religion ■ Reason vs. religion ● Kemalism ○ Type of secularism in Turkey ■ Religion is at odds with modernization and democratization ■ Exclusionary against religious, ethnic, racial, and sexual differences interventionist secularism ● Some positive results: women are given the right to vote, education is secularized and made free and available ● Staunch attack on religion ■ Turkish state neither criminalized or legitimized homosexuality ○ Made invisible ○ Ignore ● New interpretations of religion and movements ○ Continuum of engagements with religion and secularism ● Opposition/religious contradictions

○ Woman who apparently causes earthquake, said that the one who murders her will be sent to heaven ■ But nobody does this because of legal mechanisms/rights ○ Reactions of families tell us less about Islam and more about the regional patriarchy that exists in their home ● The Justice and Development Part...