Islamic Masculinities

by Ouzgane, Lahoucine; Morrell, Robert

• ISBN13: 9781842772751
• ISBN10: 1842772759
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-04-03
• Publisher: Zed Books

Summary

This innovative book outlines the great complexity, variety and difference of male identities in Islamic societies. From the Taliban orphanages of Afghanistan to the cafés of Morocco, from the experience of couples at infertility clinics in Egypt to that of Iraqi conscripts, it shows how the masculine gender is constructed and negotiated in the Islamic Ummah. It goes far beyond the traditional notion that Islamic masculinities are inseparable from the control of women, and shows how the relationship between spirituality and masculinity is experienced quite differently from the prevailing Western norms.

Author Biography

Lahoucine Ouzgane is Associate Professor of English at the University of Alberta.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii
Islamic masculinities: an introduction	1	(8)
Lahoucine Ouzgane
Masculinities and religion	9	(78)
Gender and Islamic spirituality: a psychological view of `low' fundamentalism	11	(24)
Durre S. Ahmed
The psychological/theoretical framework	12	(4)
Elements of doctrine and practice in Islamic mysticism	16	(5)
Ulemas-culinists, money-theists, and other `low' fundamentalists	21	(2)
The terror within	23	(1)
The hero's shadow	24	(1)
The absence of eros and logos	25	(3)
Masculinity in crisis	28	(2)
Conclusion	30	(5)
The smile of death and the solemncholy of masculinity	35	(22)
Banu Helvacioglu
Tragedy is comedy	36	(9)
Islamic masculinity, will you please stand up?	45	(8)
The end: go in laughter	53	(4)
Alternate images of the Prophet Muhammad's virility	57	(15)
Ruth Roded
Forthright classical Islamic descriptions of the Prophet's sexual life	57	(2)
Western European attacks on Muhammad's `licentious behaviour'	59	(3)
Modern Muslims' defensive responses	62	(3)
Modern Muslims' views of sexuality	65	(2)
Conclusion	67	(5)
The trial of heritage and the legacy of Abraham	72	(15)
Najat Rahman
Masculinities and the Palestinian--Israeli conflict	87	(56)
`My Wife is from the Jinn': Palestinian men, diaspora and love	89	(16)
Celia Rothenberg
The jinn and politics in the West Bank	89	(2)
On interpretation	91	(2)
Diaspora and return	93	(3)
Love and desire	96	(5)
The power of love	101	(4)
Chasing horses, eating Arabs	105	(18)
Rob K. Baum
The language of struggle	105	(4)
The Palestinian position	109	(1)
Plot lines	110	(2)
Screening male/female sexuality	112	(3)
Feminizing the enemy	115	(3)
Eating Arabs	118	(5)
Stranger masculinities: gender and politics in a Palestinian--Israeli `third space'	123	(20)
Daniel Monterescu
Identity conflicts and dilemmas of the Palestinian citizens of Israel	125	(1)
The mixed context in Jaffa: otherness, strangeness and stereotypes	126	(2)
To modernity and back: three competing models of masculinity	128	(9)
Stranger masculinities as postcolonial products	137	(6)
Masculinities and social practice	143	(95)
Gender, power and social change in Morocco	145	(16)
Don Conway-Long
Social changes	154	(7)
Masculinity and gender violence in Yemen	161	(23)
Mohammed Baobaid
Methodology	163	(1)
Understanding gender violence within the family	163	(2)
The status of women in Islamic countries	165	(3)
Yemen society	168	(1)
Violence against women in Yemen	169	(4)
The legalization of gender violence	173	(2)
The response of society towards gender violence	175	(2)
Conclusion	177	(3)
Appendix	180	(4)
Opportunities for masculinity and love: cultural production in Ba'thist Iraq during the 1980s	184	(18)
Achim Rohde
Nationalism and gender	186	(2)
Mass culture in Ba'thist Iraq	188	(1)
Militarism, war and gender	188	(2)
When the land is female, war is love and the nation is a family	190	(8)
Conclusion	198	(4)
On being homosexual and Muslim: conflicts and challenges	202	(15)
Asifa Siraj
Source of conflict	204	(5)
`Coming out'	209	(1)
Marriage	210	(2)
The challenge to heteronormativity	212	(1)
Conclusion	213	(4)
`The worms are weak': male infertility and patriarchal paradoxes in Egypt	217	(21)
Marcia C. Inhorn
Male infertility in global perspective	217	(3)
Methodology	220	(1)
Two cases of male infertility	221	(4)
Egyptian patriarchy	225	(1)
Patriarchy and procreative blame	226	(7)
Conclusion	233	(5)
Contributors	238	(3)
Index	241