Indirect Exemplarity: The Qualities of a Good Woman

Amīī;n al-Rīī;hānīī;'s lyrical mental picture of Hypatia's clothing habits follows a long string of epithetic description. This “ornament among women” was also “chief of Platonic philosophy, friend to princes, fond of scholarship and scholars, guide to rulers, enemy of fanaticism and superstition.” Moreover, “This virtuous pagan was very beautiful, eloquent, strong of critique, apposite in her views, quick on her feet, noble in her qualities.”^[64]

Description of status takes on moral resonance: ‘‘iffa, the chaste state of “the virgin philosopher,” becomes a marker of the excellence of this paragon-though-a-pagan. To engrave the picture deeply, the author provides a contrasting vision via reference to another Greek Egyptian, Cleopatra VII (69–30 B.C.): “We have all heard of Cleopatra, the sly and debauched one; but who among us has heard of Hypatia, the scholarly and chaste virgin?” Assuming the mantle of antiexamplar, Cleopatra is Hypatia's rhetorical reverse.^[65] Scholarship and morality, twinned markers of exemplary womanhood, oppose Cleopatra's “sly and debauched” character.

If biography was to encourage girls and women to look beyond the home, and parents and husbands to look on approvingly, writers had to proceed circumspectly. If biographies of contemporary, publicly active women could echo not only the exemplarity of the Prophet's wives but also the venerable tradition of tabaqāt in Arabic letters, so much the better. When Fawwāz gathered together her Scattered Pearls in the early 1890s, she might have drawn on American and European compendia of women's biography, but, as we have seen, the Arabic tradition provided a more familiar (and unimpeachable) discursive and social model.^[66] Praiseful attributes and telling anecdotes had structured these premodern literary models; Fawwāz followed precedent, accenting certain qualities as positive and ordering attributes and epithets in hierarchies. Biographies in magazines summoned the same flood of adjectival excellence. For qualities that had made possible the acquisition of learning and literary skill produced exemplary models for the modern girl. ‘‘A’ءisha bt. ‘‘Alī b. Muhammad (d. A.H. 816/1413 C.E.), scholar and Hadith transmitter, “she of experience and knowledge, a fine calligrapher, vivid of heart, strong of memory, quick to memorize,” was also “sublime of attributes, gentle of heart, sharp of mind and fine of merits.”^[67] The pre-Islamic poet al-Du‘‘ajā’ء bt. al-Muntashir b. Wahb was “an eloquent poet, august in her imagery, strong in her rhymes,”^[68] and she was not alone. Many are the women “famous for fadl [virtue, excellence] and perfection” (such as Nitocris), “celebrated for virtue and knowledge” (such as Clémence Royer),^[69] or “beautiful of nature and aspect” (Alexandra of England, poets Mufaddala bt. ‘‘Arfaja al-Fazārī and Safiyya bt. Musāfir, Abbasid jāriya and spouse of al-Mutawakkil Sha‘‘ānīn, Fatimid royal consort and ruler Sitt al-Mulk bt. al-‘‘Azīz, ‘‘Amra bt. al-Nu‘‘mān al-Bashīr, Marie de Sévigné, ‘‘A‘‘ida, daughter of the Ethiopian monarch Amūn Sīrū, journalist Salīma Abū Rāshid).^[70] Turkān Khātūn (d. A.H. 487/1094 C.E.), consort to the Sultan Malikshāh and partner in rule, covered the ground of superlatives well: “She was famed for strength of mind and abundance of determination; she was distinguished for wisdom, good management, high aspiration, courage, and magnanimity.” Italian polymath Maria Agnesi (1718–99) was “an amazing model and great rarity [qudwa ‘‘ajība wa nādira gharība], one of probity [‘‘afāf], refinement [adab], simplicity and sincere fidelity.” Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762)—sounding biographically like a premodern Arab poet—“was famous for liveliness of mind, vividness of heart, beauty of aspect, and perfection of morals. Of fine learning, she was unique among her peers in knowledge and virtues.” A biographer of Charlotte Corday put a traditional set of attributes into a rather untraditional context: “Those who saw her under the executioner's knife said she was pretty of countenance, attractive of features, delicate of stature, her gaze intimating courage and fidelity.”^[71] Hatshepsut, providing an “experiential lesson” and a “little sermon” for readers in 1913, offered a convergence of stellar qualities. Dahā‘‘, cunning or shrewdness, often uncomplimentary when labeling females, is positive here: “With Hatshepsut, leadership meets laudable shrewdness, political savvy embraces tact, bold initiative shakes hands with rare intelligence. . . . Greetings to the daughter of Tutmose I, heir to his sterling qualities.”^[72]

As I noted with regard to Fawwāz, translation cannot do justice to the constellation of qualities each label conveys. Yet the semantic field is suggested in the qualities that—through more than half a century of top billing: intelligence, wisdom, courage and boldness, determination, good judgment, eloquence, high ambition, modesty, charity, and loyalty. If premodern dictionaries had ascribed these to eminent women, for twentieth-century compilers they could embody different resonances. In fact, such epithets paralleled qualities nationalist writers had been urging as crucial to the nation's future in the aftermath of the British occupation. In an early issue of al-Mu’ءayyad, a writer urged his readers: “How pressing is our need for the merits of initiative [iqdām], firmness [thabāt], patience [sabr], application [or assiduousness: muzāwala], sincerity in work and active endeavor as we strive, and care to preserve general benefit so that the nation [al-watan] will grow prosperous through us and we through it, to emerge triumphant in this race in which only the alert come through with flying colors.”^[73] The gendered application of epithets in women's biographies echoed a society-wide plea, while often instructing women how to acquire, reveal, or apply those qualities. Their examples were to produce results firmly within Egypt's twentieth-century economic and political trajectory. For, as is true of notations of exemplarity, epithetic portraits could take on marked resonances. If writers wanted to convince parents that a singing career was respectable, they could gesture to local history: the moralizing ring of attributes sounds through a life of Ummayyad-period singer Jamīī;la al-Sulamiyya (d. A.H. 125/742 C.E.), who was “as famous for probity, keeping protected [from immoral conduct], purity, sedate dignity, and the arts of refinement [ādāb] as she was for singing.”^[74]

Even biographies of contemporary women published late in this period took up the traditional listing of attributes, amplified according to agendas of indigenous modernity. Theodora Haddād (d. 1889), daughter of a Tripoli (Lebanon) family eminent in its intellectual pursuits, was “known for intelligence of mind, mildness of temper, agreeableness of character, nobleness of nature, and strength of memory. And I remember”—said her niece, quoted in 1934—“her brilliance of mind and how she would relate line after line from Ibn ‘‘Aqīl.” Theodora loved algebra, engineering, and plant biology; she regretted the absence of a zoological park in her homeland. She published essays on “the importance of women's status and her influence in society. One proof she used was to say that most great men had inherited their talents from their mothers,” such as Henri IV, “son of that fine woman of august mind, Anne of Navarre [sic].”^[75] When Jurjī Bāz wrote a biography of Syrian writer Māry ‘‘Ajamī (1888–1965) to celebrate the twenty-fifth year of her literary career, he did not stop at the cliched expression “she unites art and utility” but gave it contemporary content, describing ‘‘Ajamī's methods of research and writing. “She writes out [every] speech and delivers it before her sisters, observing the extent of its impact on them so as to correct what seems weak.” Furthermore, and not to be overlooked, “She likes simplicity in her way of life, and is self-denying, free in her thinking, frank in her speaking, bold and dedicated. For twenty-five years she has toiled up the path of literature. What a priority it is for me to write her biography, and for Fatāt al-sharq to publish it.”^[76]Combining a traditional epithetic opening with an unconventional life was ‘‘Isā al-Ma‘‘lūf's description of Salmā Qusātilī (1870–1917): “She was a skilled writer and proficient physician, beautiful of demeanor, incisive of mind, eloquent of tongue, strong of memory.” An unmarried twenty-year-old, she joined her brother in Alexandria and pursued her writing. She taught in a Damascus girls' school, studied medicine in Beirut and Cairo, and became a known gynecologist and writer who moved between Egypt and al-Shām. “This energetic young woman spent her life a virgin, standing on her own two feet to serve literature and the girls of her kind in Egypt. She was famed for self-reliance and individual effort, until she died, a foreigner in Cairo. God have mercy on her and compensate her brother Nu‘‘mān Effendi, who had the preponderant role in her training and education.”^[77]

Laudatory attributes that one would expect to find in an obituary take on substance when the story of a life newly over fills them out. Jessie Hogue (1866–1905), born in Egypt to Scottish missionary parents, was “the learned, active, devout, virtuous lady” who had just died in childbirth in Alexandria when the Ladies' and Girls' Revue published its 1905 tribute. At college in Edinburgh, she was “a paragon of sweet pleasantness, delicacy and application [lutf, riqqa, ijtihād] among her peers,” taking prizes that proved “her skill, progress, and excellent comportment.” After returning to Egypt as a missionary, she was appointed to coadminister the girls' school in Asyut, for “five years in which she spared no energy,” and then for eleven years ran the girls' high school, “raising excellent ladies.”^[78] An obituarybiography of Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) calls her “sharp of intelligence, pure of mind, beautiful of self” and praises her work on education and the many articles she wrote for the cause of emancipation. Summarized from the American Arabic-language periodical al-Hudā,^[79] this text may have come from the pen of ‘‘Afīfa Karam, founder-editor and herself twice a bio-graphical subject in Young Woman of the East—in 1908 when still at the start of her career (“she began her life of the pen in 1903”), as quoted earlier, and then, tragically, less than two decades later, as Labība Hāshim penned her obituary: “Adornment of women's literature in the New World, pride of Eastern ladies, she adorned the newpapers with the pearls of her words, and with a necklace of expressions in women's defense she girded the throat of woman.” For the periodical al-Hudā was “a sword she brandished against traditions, awaking her countrywomen from the lethargy of inaction and ignorance. She walked before them, bearing the banner of literary freedom: 'woman is the foundation of the nation's ascent.'”^[80]

Sometimes a string of attributes that opens a biography in a traditional manner is repeated and its effect strengthened within the context of an anecdote that portrays the subject's personality, a feature of premodern Arabic biography, as we saw in chapter 1. Al-Jumāna bt. Qays b. Zuhayr al-‘‘Absīī;, pre-Islamic Arab poet, prose writer, and learned individual, “was among the most distinguished women of the Arab [Bedouin] in adab [conduct and literature] and morals; she was wise, widely knowledgeable, eloquent in speech, refined in her expressions, well-grounded in her impressions.” The biography relates a conflict between her father and grandfather that Jumāna defused “with her wisdom and determination.”^[81]

Of course these epithets and attributes are all the more resonant as they convey a semantic field of meaning. Possibly the best example of this for both its complexity and its ubiquity is that of fadl and its female adjectival form, fādila, as well as the related noun form fadīla (virtue, good quality). With the significance of “adding excess,” the root word also connoted “preference” and came to signify “first,” “best,” and any sort of superlative quality. More specifically, it connoted virtue. In these biographies “virtue” is moral goodness, superiority, refinement, meritoriousness, graciousness. An attribute of compliment—many a “fine lady” (sayyida fādila) herein—it becomes more than flattery as the biography fills out the substance of eminence and compliment.

The shifting use of signifiers as attributes and epithets is wonderfully evident in the adjective hurra. It labeled the free (hurra) women of the early Islamic community to distinguish them from captive women brought into the community, and it took on the related meaning of “respectable.” Yet in a context where the women's press talked of hurriyyat al-mar’ءa, “the freedom of women,” and of hurriyyat al-fikr wa-al-ra’ءy, “freedom of thought and opinion,” the adjectival form captured more than one resonance. If de Sévigné “lived honorable, virtuous, noble of morals, upright and hurra,” did hurra signify “respectable” or “free”?^[82]

Perhaps the single most common word in these biographies is adab. Texts exploited the term's range of meanings. In fact, it was probably convenient to maintain ambiguity between “refinement” and “good comportment” or “good manners” and “literature” when writing women were seeking to increase their numbers but in a nonthreatening manner. The reiterated pair of adab wa-jamāl, straight out of premodern biographies, had multiple import for modern women.

Breadth and height and brilliance and glory, of mind, heart, will, and tongue: such is the preponderance of these adjectival strings. “Foresight” links Fayrūz bt. ‘‘Alā’ء al-Dīī;n to ‘‘A’ءisha bt. Muhammad; “judiciousness” binds them both to Sitt al-Mulk, Habūs al-Shihābīī;, Sarojini Naidu, and Kanza Umm Shamla. “Courage and boldness” unite Jeanne d'Arc, Laylā bt. Tarīī;f, Bakkāra al-Hilāliyya, Agnes Weston, ‘‘A’ءisha bt. Abīī; ‘‘Abdallāh, Lady Baker, Alexandra Avierino, Hannā Kūrānīī;, Mary Kingsley, and Hind bt. Zayd. And “strength of will” pairs Hatshepsut with Charlotte Corday, Finnish scholar-journalist Mieke Freyburg, ‘‘Atiyyāt “the Copt,” and Haylāna ‘‘Abd al-Malik, a coreligionist of a much later generation.

The exemplary function of attributes was nothing new; Stowasser notes it for women who appear in the Qur’ءān:

Even the most literalist interpreters past and present . . . have also recognized the symbolic dimension of the Qur‘‘anic message on the women figures of the sacred past. It is the Qur‘‘an itself that establishes some of the 21 women as “examples” . . . of sin and righteousness, weakness and strength, vice and virtue. In the female protagonists, sin is exemplified as rebellion against God, unbelief, and also disobedience toward the husband if he be righteous. Virtue is faith to the point of martyrdom, obedience to God, “purity,” and obedience to the husband if he be righteous; it is also modesty, bashfulness, and motherly love.^[83]

But for the journals as for Fawwāz, “virtue” was cast more widely, while, like Stowasser's reading of the rhetoric of the exemplary female, magazine biographies yoked attributes to expected social roles. Attributes signaled excellence by naming qualities said to attract men to “Famous Women” as marriage partners—a pointed comment on changing marriage practices in turn-of-the-century Egypt and on the discursive environment that helped to shape them. Obedience, however, was not at the top of these lists.^[84]Napoleon II was attracted to Eugénie's (1826–1920) “sweetness of speech and rare intelligence”; “she shared with him in administering the law and studied ministers' decisions. . . . During her time on the throne she demonstrated firm will, determination to follow through, and foresight that her enemies acknowledged even before her friends could do so.” Bonaparte loved Josephine (1763–1814) for her “rare good qualities and fine virtues.” The letters she wrote to him after their divorce demonstrate her “delicacy of feeling, nobleness of morals, and breadth of culture.” What cements a marriage? The Sultan Malikshāh “saw in [Turkān] political skill and sound views that attached him to her ever more strongly and intensified his respect for her ideals.” Jahangir, Mughal ruler of India, was “captivated” by Nūr Jahān's (1571–1646) wisdom and good guidance, “so he handed over the reins of power and she became 'the one who commands and prohibits' the people, directing the rudder of politics on the straightest of courses.”^[85] These texts were becoming available to schoolgirls as companionate marriage, based on respect and affection between partners, was becoming an established elite ideal in Egypt.