A.
Biography
Dr. Barbara
Stowasser holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern studies from the University of
California, Los Angeles and a Ph.D. (magna cum laude) in comparative semitics
and Islamic studies from the University of Munster, Germany. She also studied
at the Universities of Frankfurt, Erlangen, and Mainz in Germany, Ankara in
Turkey, and the American University in Cairo. Dr. Stowasser has taught at
Georgetown University since 1966. Most popular among her recent courses has
been the two-semester senior seminar on Arabic culture, a one-semester course
on the Islamic city, a graduate seminar on Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir), and a
graduate seminar on women in the Qur’an. Previously she also taught courses on
Arabic literature and Arab and Islamic history. At Georgetown, Dr. Stowasser
developed and taught all the graduate courses on Qur’anic tafsir and introduced
the study of Islam and gender into the curriculum.
Dr. Stowasser
has been the recipient of many grants and fellowships, including those from the
Fulbright Program, the Social Science Research Council,
and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1998-1999 she served as
President of the Middle East Studies
Association of North America.
During the past
several decades, Dr. Stowasser’s research and publications have focused on
Islam and gender, which has made her one of the early pioneers on this topic in
the West. Her best-known and most popular publication is Oxford University
Press’s Women in the Qur’an, Traditions and Interpretation (1994), translated
into Danish (Carsten Niebuhr Institute, University of Copenhagen, in their
“modern classic” series, 2008). She also edited and contributed to a book on
contemporary Islam titled The Islamic Impulse (1987, reprinted 1989), and
co-edited and contributed to the volume Islamic Law and the Challenges of
Modernity (2004). In addition, she wrote a monograph on classical Arabic
philosophy of history, and composed several early pieces on Arabic linguistics.
She has also published many invited book chapters and journal articles.
From 1980-1984
and from 1985-1991, Dr. Stowasser was Chair of the Department of Arabic (now
the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, in Georgetown College). In
addition to the 2010-2011 academic year, she has served as CCAS’s director from 1993-2003 and from
2006-2007." [1]
B.
Barbara’s Thoughts Concerning Hadith
According to Barbara’s perspecitive, the Hadith is both
a record of what Muhammad actually said and did and also a record of what his
community in the first two centuries of Islamic history believed that he said
and did. Thus, the Hadith has been called "a guide to understanding the
historical Muhammad” as well as a guide to understanding the evolution of
Muslim piety from the seventh to the ninth centuries[2].
The major point that underline Barbara’s definition of
Hadits lies on both of Prophet’s Saying and deeds and the record of first two
century of the Prophet’s paragon. At this point, Barbara didn’t make any
significant diffrences between sunna and hadith, while some
nomenclature of traditional Hadits Sciences (‘Ulum al-Hadith) had
already make the diffrences between sunna as Prophet’s paragon include
his saying, deeds, decision, and even his charasteristic of both morality (khuluqiyyah)
and physical (khalqiyah), moreover all the historical journey, before
and after revelation[3],
and hadits as the Prophet’s
Paragon after revelation[4].
However, many muslim scholars also equalize both of the term as all of the
Prophet’s Paragon.
Unlike the traditional scholars, those who dispose
bothe of sunna and hadith in the non-historical purpose and
understanding, the modern muslim scholars, like Fazlur Rahman, appears to
introduce the new historical definition concerning sunna and hadith. On
Fazlur Rahman’s view, the so-called hadits is a kind of the
verbalization of the long-distance tradition based on the sunna, the
living tradition based on the interpretation of The Prophet’s Paragon that took
two centuries to be formalized on the books of hadith. The main chronologies of
Rahman’s view can be seen below:
Prophet’s Paragon
Companions Practice
Individual Interpretation
Opinio
Generalis
Opinio Publica (Sunnah)
Formalized
Sunnah (Hadits).[5]
Handing on Fazlur Rahman, the main attention of
Barbara’s thought of Hadits is the historical purpose of the Prophet’s Paragon,
not about the authenticity, etc. The Rahman’s scheme above is what Barbara
Stowasser called as “Hadith”. Otherwise, the works of Barbara would be based not
only on the so-called books of hadits, but she put a lot of attention to
the sirah book.
The
Prophets Wives as Paragons of Virtue, and Precedent-Setting Models for All
Women
A.
Role of Prophet’s Wives: The Norm Setters
According to Barbara, A large segment of the Hadith
depicts the Mothers of the Believers as models of piety and righteousness whose
every act exemplifies their commitment to establish God's order on earth by
personal example. Their battlefields are not the plains ofwar on which Muslim
men fight against infidel armies but involve the struggle to implement and
safeguard Islamic norms and values[6].
This process, then, involved a dynamic spiral of mutual
reinforcement of its two constituent components; the principle of these women's
righteousness on the one hand, and their function as categorical norm-setters
on the other. Here, the Prophet's wives are depicted both as models and
enforcers of the then newly imposed Qur'anic norms
B.
Enforcers of Qur'anic Norms
It is reported, for instance, that A'isha ripped off
the thin, transparent khimar("kerchief") her niece Hafsa wore
in her presence; "she chastised her, reminded her of the modesty-verse of
the 'Sura of the Light' (24:31), and clad her in a thick cloth" (Ibn Sa'd,
Nisa', pp. 49-50). A'isha is said to have worn the "veil" in
public at all times, even as a little girl before she had reached puberty (but
after the Prophet had asked for her hand in marriage).
The Prophet's wives were scrupulous in hiding behind
the bijab (enjoined upon them by the revelation of Sura 33:53) in the
presence of individuals who did not belong to the "exempt groups"
defined in Sura 33:55. A'isha, for instance, is said to have secluded herself
(behind the screen) from Hasan and Husayn, the Prophet's grandchildren (Ibn
Sa'd, Nisa', p. 50). She also hid behind the partition in the presence
ofa blind man, Ishaq al-A'ma, saying that although he could not see her, she
nevertheless could see him.
C.
The Mutual Love and Compassion Between Prophet’s Wives
The righteousness of Muhammad's wives, however, went
beyond their role as precedent-setting exemplars of juridic norms. Barbara
mentioned
I.
The women called each other "sister" (Ibn
Sa'd, Nisa', p. 78)
II.
Praised each other's uprightness, devotion, and charity
(ibid., p. 73).
III.
When Zaynab bint Jahsh fell ill, it was Muhammad's other
widows who nursed her, and when she had died, it was they who washed, embalmed,
and shrouded her body (ibid., pp. 78-79).[7]
Finally, the Hadith emphasizes that the Prophet's
wives' righteousness included profound knowledge of matters of the faith.
D.
Barbara’s Critique on Aisyah
After mentioned the righteousness of Prophet’s wives as
a norm setter briefly, Barbara goes on to said the exception. Accoring to her,
the most notable exception to such righteous immobility on the part of the
Mothers of the Believers is, of course, A'isha's well-established active
involvement in public affairs after the Prophet's death, which culminated in
the Battle of the Camel.
A'isha's
behavior was clearly outside of the norms reportedly observed by the Prophet's
other widows. Here it is noteworthy, however, that the Hadith overall refrains
from having others censure A'isha for her role in the "affair of the
lie" or the Battle of the Camel. Instead it was she herself who is said to
have regretted her part in these events most bitterly; reportedly, she passed
her final days in selfrecrimination, sighing that she wished she had been
"a grass, a leaf, a tree, a stone, a clump of mud ... not a thing
remembered" (Ibn Sa'd, Nisa', pp. 51-52). [8]
Bibliography
‘Ajjaj
al-Khatib, Muhammad. Ushul al-Hadits, ‘Ulumuhu wa Mushthalahuhu. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr. 1967
Rakhmat,
Jalaluddin. Dahulukan Akhlak di atas
Fiqih. Bandung: Mizan. 2002
Stowasser,
Barbara. Women in The Qur’an, Tradition and Intepretation. New York: Oxford
University Press. 1994
[1]. Resumed From Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, www.sourcewatch, acessed 5 Mei
2013
[2]. Barbara Stowasser, Women in The
Qur’an, Tradition and Intepretation, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994),
page 104
[3]. See ‘Ajjaj
al-Khatib, Ushul al-Hadits, ‘Ulumuhu wa Mushthalahuhu, (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1967), page 19
[4] Ushul
al-Hadits, ... page 27
[5]. See Jalaluddin Rakhmat, Dahulukan Akhlak di atas Fiqih, chapter
“Dari Sunnah ke Hadits atau Sebaliknya ?”, (Mizan, Bandung, 2002) page
234.
[6] . Women in The Qur’an, Tradition and Intepretation, ...... page 115
[7] . Women in The
Qur’an, Tradition and Intepretation, ...... page 117
[8] . Women in The Qur’an, Tradition and Intepretation, ...... page 117
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