The image of women in Islamic writing

Assad Seif

20 years of state-sponsored literature in Iran

Art, and consequently story writing, are trips to a person’s interior and being, to their transparent and hidden layers. It is a journey of discovery of its layered secrets and mysteries; secrets and mysteries which cannot be explained without referring to environment and society. The more succinct and effective the singular language of art and literature, the more effective and valuable the creation. The language of any art form embodies its significance and value and the secret of its durability must also be sought in these relations.

Whatever the nature of the revolution of February 1979, it transformed the moral and material conditions of society which naturally effected art and literature. Out of the revolution, and the government it gave birth to, a new “style” of art and literature, “Islamic writing”, arose in Iran. This “innovation” has now been around for decades, during which thousands of books, novels, stories, poems, anthologies, magazines etc... have been, and are being, published whose authors call themselves “Islamic writers”.

Yet the spirit dominating these works illustrates a complete absence of any deep or novel movement. A talent that is in step with social development is just not there. The thinking governing this literature have enclosed it with such a high rampart that any deviation from, or violation of its framework will not go unpunished.

The words are antiquated. Disused, decayed and non-contemporary words are embellished with Arabic terms in an excuse to show off knowledge, as well as disseminating “Qur’anic writing”. The effect is to disjoint Farsi writing without, in turn, creating a distinct and acceptable attributes for the style they have invented.

The regime’s theoreticians of art claim that the days of diverse artistic and literary styles are over. Contemporary life can no longer be displayed in those artistic moulds. They have allegedly founded a new style and loudly denounce all existing artistic and literary styles as infertile and valueless. Yet despite screaming the death of all schools, after two decades nothing has been accomplished by “Islamic writing”.

The writers of these works live here on earth, but in their writings try to link humans with an unknown circle. Their creations are not derived from any pressing need from life. They have turned to the heavens, they say, to gain a new expression, vision and perception of life. It is easy to trace here the increasing inclination and promotion in every work of superstition, blind fanaticism, delusions, submission, and….

The present work tries to uncover the image of women in “Islamic writing” in Iran. The evidence comes from the various utterances of the regime’s artistic and literary theoreticians, as well as novels and stories that have been offered as the finest examples of “Islamic writing”.

Historic step back

Never in our history have women been presented in the way they are in society today. In Iranian literature women have at times been presented as fairy or an angel of mercy in the heavens, and at times as a fellow traveller of the devil. Sometimes she is a goddess of kindness, love and fertility and at others an insane and foolish creature. Some see her as half or a semi-human. What is certain is that the majority see her as a creature for men, and in his service. The history of our country is filled with literary works showing the domination of men over women. Throughout history women have been used by men as sexual objects.

In the use of this “means” Islam has devised special rules, and it is this that has grown and been implemented in particular ways in our male-centred culture. It is a certain form of this which dominates “Islamic literature”, only in amore backward form.

The domination of men over women and her sexual exploitation means that it is taboo for a Muslim to write or talk of the least sexual act, even a kiss. When depicting the different dimensions of the image of women in literature, she is never taken seriously. The paternalistic perspective, the male-centred culture as well as the socio-economic status of women has meant that in hardly any story can one find a trace of the real image of women, and what takes place not in fantasy, but in the reality of her daily life. The female model for “Islamic tales” is a traditional, dogmatic, passive and religious person. This is an undoubted backward step, even in the light of the depiction of the role and image of women in the literary history of previous centuries. The world view of “Islamic writers” in this field is so narrow and barren that even female “Islamic writers” in practice follow this line in their works.

Scaffolding

Because of the particularities of Iranian society, stories and story-telling have always had an educational form. Islamic writers try not to neglect the educational aspects of literature, while intertwining religious issues into the stories. In this way the superiority of men, his being wiser and more complete, is made manifest in most tales. For example note the words of a female character in a story written by a man: “… I have little patience, you have such endurance, you are a man. My heart is fragile, you are not fragile, you do not break, you are a man. Let my life be an offering to you, man” [1]. Now compare this written by a woman: “Father, don’t pay much attention to the tears of us women. Crying comes easily to us. It is at hand. It is just a habit. To give up a habit is a cause of illness”. [2] In these tales the man is the protector and keeper of women. Without him the woman is nothing. And it is a woman, who speaking in the language of “Islamic writing” says: “you [meaning man] have chosen this road to save the likes of me, to save the women and the girls of this country, to save the chastity of us all” [3]. Or “Nargess was a runner flower who needed a scaffolding [meaning a man] and now she had lost her scaffolding. That is why she spent most of her time at home.” [4].

Love

Love and passions are portrayed upside down. Earthy love is introduced as sterile and life on earth valueless. Consequently love is shown full of hate. Love is directed at the other world (death). For example observe the following ideal for love, as presented by an “Islamic writer” from the mouth of a woman: “women feel good if they are being praised and eulogised by men. You were forever praising my cooking, my taste, my looks, my clothes and my temperament and swept my heart away. You stole my heart with your praises, your words, with your recital of the Qur’an, your soft and pleasant voice while standing to prayer, with your modesty and humility. You took my heart, and if I were to know that you have taken my heart with you to heaven I will have no worries” [5].

The artistic and literary theoreticians of the regime believe that to picture “a love affair of the earthly variety” in a plot “ultimately does away with morality and the values of faith and the divine, and disseminates a form of delinquency and licentiousness and is a license for the banal.” [6]

“Islamic writers” say: “religious morality forbids the individual to mention a depravity which they have personally seen or heard so as to prevent the spread of prostitution”. Therefore to portray these scenes is proof of the spread of prostitution and ultimately “to read such images [scenes of love] have no function but to unnecessarily and mischievously provoke sexual temptation, temptations that are even more [real] in private”. [7]

Consequently the greater part of Iranian and world literature is rejected and denounced as anti-value. Because “the whole book is surrounded by an aura of sex and banality. A banality which undoubtedly comes from the sick mind of the author” [8] since the “most ugly immoral scenes that can corrupt the younger generation is depicted in these novels”. [9] Islamic stories arrived at such value judgements because its authors came to view the works of outsiders as “merely the embodiment of sexual and non-sexual longings, bitter complexes and personal wailings of the writers” [10].

They themselves prefer to concentrate on subjects such as chastity, purity, shame, modesty, hejab, virtue, and …so as to educate women and turn them into obedient creatures giving service to men. The point of attack on non-Islamic writers is precisely from this angle. That is why most Islamic authors prefer not to have a woman in their stories. For example in all the books published in the winter of 1992 for young readers, three characters only were female compared to 42 males [11].

Mother or widow

When the “Islamic writer” has a need for women in his/her story she appears in the guise of a mother or widow of a martyr, or a propagandist in the spiritual instruction of women.

Marriage is the only route foreseen for women in an Islamic society. Women must marry and have children. In the Islamic stories a woman is either married or about to do so. Indeed, women are only defined in relation to marriage. A woman, before appearing as a woman, is portrayed as a mother of her children. It is only in the realm of motherhood that women “evolve”. And it is precisely in this role that Islamic writers take her into their service. It is as a mother that a woman is honoured.

Men are complete and autonomous beings, while women are incomplete and dependent. Men are the means of production in relation to society, while women are described in their relation to men. Women are the servants of men and produce for him, that is give birth to his children. It is here that the inequality between men and women in life is reflected in literature, and indeed is promoted. Men ad women both serve God. Meanwhile women serve men too. Women were created in order to satisfy man’s expectations.

Body

The body is sinful in Islamic stories and is the embodiment of earthly temptations. A woman’s body allures one towards sin. It was because of woman that man was expelled from heaven, the same man for whom God had created woman from his left rib. The whole of Islamic literature tries to separate a woman from her body. This is why women have no creative roles in the plots. The woman is the gateway to the devil. Stay away from her and you are saved.

For example in the novel Roots in the Depths by Hassan Beigi, a prominent Islamic writer, of the three female characters, all passive, two are mothers and the other the wife of the hero – a revolutionary guard who according to himself has chosen the profession of war. These three have not a single active and vital role in the story. They appear there so that the author can use them to express his objective. These women, like women in other Islamic stories, have the duty to wash clothes, cook, care, sew and darn, assist the men behind the battle lines, have children and …. Since women cannot understand reality, and not being a man, cannot go to the war fronts [12], they are always in tears. [13] The man speaks of the realities of life, such as war and the fronts. And the woman: “what has happened was unimportant to her” [14]. And interestingly the hero of the story flees life on earth, and although his marriage is only two moths old, is thinking of “escape” from life, “escape from a life which was beginning to smell of a bog” [15]. In this tale, as in others, a woman is not there to create another world. She is occupies the edge of a world which is masculine.

Dull witted

I will quote from Fire in the Crop by Hossein Fattahi, which was the book of the year for 1998. In this book there is only one female person, the servant of the master, always in the kitchen. Although she is a Muslim, a supporter of the regime and anti-master, even when conditions are at their worse and Iraqi troops occupy Iran, and the master is colluding with them, she prefers to stay by his side. As a woman she did not have the brains to flee as the men have done [16].

Islamic writers are afraid of intelligent girls or women in their stories. So far no Islamic writer has creates such a character in fiction. They are fearful in case the woman has to decide for herself. This would be frightful.

In Islamic stories men are always together and women together. If the family has guests, or go visiting, men sit around, while women are together in the kitchen. Even children play separately. The writer makes sure that the two families are never placed in a situation where boys and girls have to play together. [17].

The body of a woman is hateful. Women are the embodiment of sin. No erotic experience is allowed in Islamic stories. Sexual enjoyment is only meaningful for men. This is undoubtedly why the pleasures of physical love or naming or talking of it is considered offensive in Iranian culture. If a woman writes about this she is a prostitute and if a man does so, he is foulmouthed. To enter this realm is, in general, a sin.

Islamic writers offer happiness as the antithesis of physical pleasure and worldly love. This happiness is not of this world, but in heaven. One can only grasp it after death. Thousands of stories that depict the war – especially during the war –promote this theme. [18]

In Islamic tales women must not use makeup, wear beautiful, lively coloured clothes, nor wear trousers or skirts, or be without a scarf or the baggy manteau. In general woman must not be portrayed as beautiful since her beauty is corrupting and makeup tools un-Islamic. Whenever Islamic writers want to portray western or pre-revolutionary and other-thinking woman in a story, they put makeup on her, grow her nails and sit her next to men. Thus in Mashu in Fog a woman office worker, a SAVAK agent is described as “tall, with glasses with plaited auburn hair which falls on her left shoulder … wearing a pink short sleeve shirt and tight trousers” and “had long painted nails” [19].

Rurally submissive

Since in the village, people are poorer and men are in a more secure situation, Islamic writers try to place the subject of most of their creations in villages. The village is closer to feudal relations and men are more powerful. There are few stories which take place in town. Where writers turns to a city they will always chose one where village relations are dominant [20]. In this environment the woman is an appendage of the man. And the guardianship of men more secure. In these plots a woman is part of the existence of men. Exactly in the same way as paternalism rules over society. Islamic writing always wants to portray woman as an object, necessary but not intrusive, in its stories.

In few stories can one see an intellectual or an educated woman or even a woman student. If such a person appears they will undoubtedly be an “counter-revolutionary” and an unbeliever. These women always betray their husbands. They are devoid of “chastity” “virtue” and “loyalty” [21].

The real reason “Islamic writers” avoid urban intellectual women is rooted in a problem that is not individual but social. The rural woman is compliant. She avoids any independent will or action. She is not “faithless” like her westoxified city counterpart. [22] Man, is in essence her saviour, as she herself acknowledges.

Sex taboos

Moreover the understanding of sex by the middle and lower classes and also the more backward societies is entirely different from in more advanced societies. She is devoted to the sexual wishes of men and accepts this as a duty. Her moral inclination and understanding of sexual matters is nothing more that performing a chore. Islamic writers also approaches women and sex from this angle. Women in the Islamic writing have a fundamentally submissive understanding of sexual relations. Since men control the sexual feelings of women and keep it under his submission, the sexual rebellion of women is also suppressed. This further augments her submissive notions of sexual matters.

It is precisely from this angle that non-Islamic writers come under fire. For example: Hushang Golshiri’s book The lost sheep of Mr Ra’i is said to be full of “disgusting sexual descriptions” which enunciates “secret matters” in the “public eye” [23]. Or Barahani’s Zellolallah is “filed with the most despicable lumpen terms which is even shameful to think about” [24]. According to the Islamic writers sexual pleasure is “the most secret corner of deviant and sick human beings” [25]

A deeper look at the representation of sex in Islamic stories requires a consideration of both Islam and the concept of “sexual-economics” which is a part of the social science of sexual existence. Apart from primitive religions, all paternalistic religions reject the sexual needs of women. Islam is no different. Islamic writers, echo their sources, by mistaking sexual life with procreation. And even while performing this “religious duty”, that is procreation, no word should be said about sexual pleasure seeking.

In some stories educational values are brought in against sexual desires. Sexual taboos, which normally address women, is intermingled with religious fears and the terror of sin. These in turn are the source of variety of social disturbances. This is because religion had devised punishment for sexual pleasure and sex, not just for the act itself, but even for its thought. Sexual inclinations are satanic and bad. Sexual excitement is a calamity for humans, a torture. It is destructive. Even a look is disallowed as it is the start of the fall. Hejab, significantly given the name of “barricade”, is encouraged [26]. From this vantage point pre-revolutionary literature is seen as “nothing more than the embodiment of flouted sexual desires and complexes” [27].

In Islamic stories women and youth have no sexual feeling or inclinations. Examples can be found in hundreds of tales and “war stories”. The principal role behind this is that of religious “authority”. Religion cannot impose its power without creating an “authority”. To train submissive individuals is the essence of all religions. One factor in imposing this authority is sex. Sexual taboos are nothing but sinful. Therefore sexual desires should be cast out. Sin is suffering, the distress of the soul and psyche.

The persistence of sexual repression give rise to a disease-like and unreal growth of such entities as “obligation”, “duty”, “purity and honour”, “bravery”, “self denial” and …. These ideas are echoed in so many Islamic stories, bringing a particular conduct in their wake. Sex and sexual behaviour are defined as something outside life itself. For this reason the young man is in battle with himself. He has to dry up sexual desire in himself and fight off sexual temptations.

Superstition tries its best to replace sexual instinct with another. God and the Qur’an are among the tools by which sexual instincts are repressed, and joy condemned. Any pleasure is only explained by reference to God. The religious person gets pleasure through self torment. At its peak stands the ecstacy of martyrdom. In Pol, the hero has been shot and is on death’s door. He is asked how he feels. “I am enjoying it, how pleasurable this is” he answers [28]. And Khamenei’ instructs poets and writers “write about martyrdom, that is the highest model for humanity”. [29].

The heroes of Islamic stories, believers and Muslims all, will torment and torture themselves even before they have committed a sin, at the thought or prospect of that sin or in order to forestall it, and thereby are comforted. To suffer is an inseparable part of religion and humans are comforted at the peak of self torment. Religious ecstasy is the height of pleasure, which they try to substitute for sexual pleasure.

Joy

Existing and earthly joy is expunged from these stories so that reward in the other world can be earned. The hero tries to overcome his earthly joy, and seek his pleasures in the heavens and in his dreams and in this way suppress his sexual excitements. It is in this relation that new occupations enter his/her life. The Komeil prayer rites (a lengthy prayer at night), mourning ceremonies, a variety of prayers, .. he/she hide their real excitements behind these preoccupations. According to Islamic writers “sadness is one of the main elements in an artistic creation” and “joy, happiness, laughter and guffaws cannot be said to be close to the essence of art and beauty” [30]. The constant tears of women in these tales can be understood from this angle [31].

… And it is thus that in none of the Islamic stories men and women kiss, hold hands, woo and make earthly love or woo. They do not share a bed, nor sit by each other, do not go walking together. If there is a heroine, she is inevitably married, and if she is a girl she will not face a man at any stage in the story. She is sexless. In no story are husband and wife pictured before marriage to avoid committing a sin.

Islamic writers, in order to keep the bounds of the traditional family clean and keep the secrets of family life within this structure, with all the religious angst and the helplessness arising out of this, usually prefer to give in to a society without women in their narratives.

In consequence: contemporary Islamic art literature and Islamic artists in Iran have nothing new to say. Their art, existing outside time and place, is doomed to decline. These stories are nothing but moral-political articles that cannot survive.

Translated by Mehdi Kia, October 1999

Assad Seif has made a special study f the effects of the Islamic revolution on Iranian literature and culture. This is a slightly abridged translation of Chapter 4 in Eslam Nevisi (Islamic Writing) Analysis of two decades of state literature in Iran published by Baran, Sweden 1999. It was initially a talk given on July 1998 at the Nima Cultural Centre, Lille, France

In the Introduction Assad Seif writes: in dictatorial regimes individualism is never valued. Such regimes want everyone identical: identical looks, identical thought, identical acts. All people must think alike, clothes themselves alike, act alike…. If it is not so then they must be guided towards this path. This is the vision that sets the “human-making” machines in motion in the Islamic Republic. New humans are made in new moulds. The dictator can never accept humans as they are.

Footnotes

Because of space the footnotes have been omitted. They can be obtained by applying

to the iran bulletin office.