Public Violence against Women
The anecdotes that expose violence exercised upon women are not restricted to the domestic sphere of the private household but also involve violence perpetrated in the public spaces against individual women and groups.
The material which I have sampled from the large canon of Arabic-Islamic texts deals with two main forms of violence against women. One is an ideological type of violence, perpetrated by fringe groups in forms that seem to define and exclude such groups. The other is of a more random nature, more of the criminal type.Criticism against two religious fringe groups, the Khawarij and the Qaramita, focused on their excessive violence against women. The material presents a blend of information about events and reconstruction of the motivation and ethos of these groups. Early texts mention horrific episodes of violence against women in connection with the Khawarij, a rigorous group with intense devotion but also with a strong penchant for violence. The historian al-Tabari mentions that the Khawarij ripped open the bellies of their enemies' pregnant women. This horrible and repugnant act is associated with a topos whereby women, moments prior to their deaths, speak boldly to their attackers and condemn their horrible deeds.[617] One of their victims, Bunana bt. Abu Yazid, ‘who had read the Qur'an', shouted at her killers: ‘Woe to you! Have you ever heard of men killing women?'[618] The way the Khawarij were imagined and interpreted by the other Muslims, with a mixture of fascination and loathing, was expressed most vividly in anecdotes that centred on this violence against women.
Another fringe extremist group, the Qaramita, a Shi‘i sect that emerged in the third/ninth century, were viewed as heretical extremists and were accused of excessive violence, sometimes against the women closest to them.
One episode in al-Tanukhi's Nishwar depicts an act of violence perpetrated by a son against his mother. The tale is related by the mother who searched the desert camps to reclaim her son who had joined the rebels: ‘I found him in a Qarmati army... he asked me: what is your religion? I said, it is Islam, my son, as you know. He answered: mother, leave this religion and join me.' As she tried to run away from her son, he followed her and, striking his mother with his sword, wounded her shoulder.[619] The mother told the story, horrified at the defiant atmosphere of the camps, whose converts rejected the ethics, moralities and laws of established society. Her zealous and emancipated son was tough and cruel, showing no acknowledgment of a mother's dues. These reports on public violence were ideologically motivated, reflecting the mainstream's perspective that saw these fringe groups as Muslims of lesser quality, and perhaps at times as unbelievers. It is this evaluation that makes the anecdote just related understandable. The son's violent behaviour towards his mother confirmed the Qaramita's rejection of the most essential of social bonds, and the most instinctive loyalties.[620]While such anecdotes were meant to reinforce entrenched preconceptions, al-Tanukhi includes anecdotes pertaining to random common criminal acts of violence against women on the streets of Baghdad. A sailor who was being interrogated by the chief of police in Baghdad told the following tale of sex, violence and death. As he was strolling at night in the dark, a servant whom he did not know handed him a woman and her two daughters, gave him some money and asked him to take them to the neighbourhood of Bab al-Shammasiyya. The events took a whole new turn as the woman uncovered her face: ‘She was beautiful, like the moon and I desired her... I moved out my boat to the middle of the Tigris and I stepped up towards her and I tried to seduce her.
She started to scream. I told her: By God, if you scream, I will drown you.' She became silent but continued to resist him until he threatened her with the drowning of her daughters. He drowned one, then the other and she continued to refuse him. He then told her: ‘There is nothing left for me to do except to kill you: let me lest I kill you.' The woman finally gave in and he had intercourse with her. He then decided that she would give him up to the authorities. He decided to drown her. The man was eventually caught and he confessed to his horrible crimes on the basis of an aman (safe-conduct) that the head of the police had extended to him. In his own self-defence he stated that he was overtaken by sudden and uncontrollable sexual urges and that he was almost in a state of ‘madness' while committing his actions. The head of police nevertheless told him: ‘there is no aman for a dog like you. You have killed three people and committed adultery.' His head was severed, then his legs and neck, then his body was set on fire.[621]What this story suggests is that the streets of Baghdad were dangerous for women. Unaccompanied, women could suffer a terrible fate. That is why these three women were initially entrusted to the sailor, who betrayed their expectations and trust and committed serial murder. This potential violence restricted women's movements in the city. Women could pay with their lives for daring to circulate unattended, without the protection of a male guardian. Violence, notably rape, and even death, was a form of social control and, as feminist critics postulate, it is fundamental to the functioning of patriarchy.[622]
Al-Tanukhi's compilation, al-Faraj, includes the story of a Turkish soldier who kidnapped a woman on the road and brought her to his house. It is noteworthy that the neighbours tried to stop him unsuccessfully. Once inside, the Turkish soldier closed the door and attempted to seduce her, to no avail. As he was forcing himself on her, she told him, ‘Wait until you close the remaining door.' ‘Which door?', he asked. ‘The door between you and God', she answered. He stood up, saying, ‘Leave, God has given you relief.' She departed, unmolested.48 While this anecdote's punchline fits its incorporation into the relief after adversity genre, which highlights stories whereby a protagonist says the right thing to escape danger, it also reveals that soldiers could - and perhaps did - behave with depravity. This is confirmed in another anecdote by al-Tanukhi that mentions that the leader of the Khurasanian army came to Sijistan with a large number of troops who behaved with wickedness as their hands stretched out to the women on the streets.49
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