Gender Distinctions in Islamic Consciousness in the North Caucasus

Abstract

Focused on data from Dagestan, with comparisons from Kabardino-Balkaria and Chechnya, the author surveys attitudes toward issues of gender and family among various practicing Muslims of the ethnically diverse population. He argues that for most women, their religious self-awareness is based on conventional koranic categories and spatial divisions, complementary to those of men. His survey research indicates that in the North Caucasus, while some Islamic leaders have attempted to legalize polygamy, far more women than men oppose this.

Notes

^1. O.A. Voronina, ed., Feminizm: perspektivy sotsial'nogo znaniia (Moscow, 1992), p. 124.

^2. See L. Poliakov, “Zhenskaia emansipatsiia i teologiia pola v Rossii XIX v.,” In Feminizm. Vostok. Zapad. Rossiia (Moscow, 1993), p. 57.

^3. See Iu.M. Nekaenko, Gendernoe simvolicheskoe prostranstvo: Transformatsiia v usloviiakh globalizatsii (Rostov-on-Don, 2005), p. 117.

^4. Ibid., pp. 117–18.

^5.Koran. Translation from the Arabic and commentary by M.-N.O. Osmanov, Moscow, 1999, Sura 4, ayah 34 [All English translations from the Koran in this article are from www.quran.com.—Trans.].

^6. Ibid., Sura 2, ayah 282.

^7. Ibid., Sura 2, ayah 223.

^a. The author uses iudeikami not evreikami here, thus the translation is Hebrews rather than Jews. Another important issue concerns converted Christians and Hebrews. It is expected that Muslim men can marry women from these other religions in order to convert them.

^8. See G.M. Kerimov, Shariat: zakon zhizni musul'man. Otvety shariata na problemy sovremennosti, St. Petersburg, 2007, pp. 202–10.

^9. Survey of 2004 Dagestan (n = 600).

^10. See Koran, Sura 4, ayah 129.

^b. See also Abu Gadaborshev, Abu 2010 “Anyone for Polygamy? A Marriage Boom in Ingushetia is Not Expected,” in Religion and Politics in Russia, ed. M.M. Balzer (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2010), pp. 142–43.

^11.n = 600.

^12. The respondent could choose only one variant of response to the question.

^13. In the RD, the sociological sample comprises 429 respondents; in the CR 231; in the KBR 285. The total sample included 47.4 percent men and 52.6 percent women.

^c. Reference is to the Salafis, the first three generations of Muslims. In turn, the “Followers” were the generation of Muslims born after Muhammad's death but while some of his Companions were still alive.

d. This restriction list for women's behavior is interesting, in that it mixes religious (shar'iah) and customary (adat) law.

^14. “Rasskazhi o sebe,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, December 19, 2011.

^15.Vozrastno-polovoi sostav naseleniia i sostoianie braka. Itogi Vserossiiskoi perepisi naseleniia. 2002 g., vol. 2 (Moscow, 2004), p. 15.

English translation © Taylor & Francis from the Russian text © 2011 the author. “Gendernye osobennosti islamskogo soznaniia na Severnom Kavkaze,” in Z.M. Abdulagatov, ed., Dagestanskii sotsiologicheskii sbornik—2012 (Makhachkala: ALEF, 2012), pp. 14–27.Zaid M. Abdulagatov, candidate of philosophical sciences, is head of the sociology section, Institute of History, Archeology, and Ethnography of the Dagestan Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.The article was written with the financial support of the RAS Presidium's Fundamental Research Programs “Traditsii i novatsiii v istorii i kul'ture” (Traditions and Novelties in History and Culture). “Islam v kul'ture narodov Rossii” (Islam in the Culture of the Peoples of Russia) project, no. 3.20, c.h.s. A.A. Iarlykapov, administrator.Translated by Stephan Lang.