The collection of stories called “Distant View of a Minaret” that was written by an Egyptian female author Alifa Rifaat had a huge impact on the understanding of sexuality in the contemporary Middle East. It’s been known the questions of gender and sex are often ignored in that part of the world. Due to a long history and a deeply rooted faith, people of this area lack democracy. Their societies have been built on conservatism, traditions and ethics that are very often unfair to certain groups of people of those societies. Those people usually include females, slaves and generally the poor who are not able to protect themselves. Throughout history, the rich have been powerful, and nothing couldn’t stop them from doing mean things to their slaves. They could get away with almost everything. Mistreating slaves is one of the themes that is covered by Alifa Rifaat in one of her stories called “The Long Night of Winter”. Other stories mention the relationship between husbands and wives, the way women are portrayed in the eyes of men. She also gives an example of how sexism grows and flourishes this part of the world. In this paper, I’m going to discuss some of her short stories in order to explain the understanding of liberation in this culture. I’m also going to mention how women try to fight “the norms” of this society and the way they challenge the modern Middle Eastern world.
Alifa Rifaat’s female characters never seem to be happy about anything that happens to them. Many of them are dissatisfied with their marriages mainly because of lack of understanding between them and their husbands. Middle Eastern man has never been raised knowing that the woman can provide for herself and take care of herself; they are raised to be the only sources of income in their families. Their role usually ends at being at work all the time and spending minimum amount of time at home, especially if those men are wealthy, just like Alifa Rifaat describes. The wives of such wealthy men don’t seem to be able to occupy themselves with anything. Thus, in the story called “The Long Night of Winter”, where the wife of such husband uses her power to abuse the slave girl. Not only is she physically abusing her by making her do activities that might not be comfortable for, but she also abuses her own power. One should always know that sexual interaction with slaves will not do you one any good. In many countries, there were laws against sexual abuse of slaves. However, she used her social status to justify her actions and her attraction to a slave girl, who, of course, didn’t understand what rights she had and how to behave with such a powerful woman. The feeling of darkness, depression and anxiety has been following me while I was reading the story. Such thing seems so archaic, but as we can see, it is still happening.
The problem of the characters of “The Long Night of Winter” is absence of love. Of course, there are other problems like abusing power and getting sexual satisfaction by all means. But the absence of sexual satisfaction comes from lack of love in these arranged marriages. Thus, the main character of “The Long Night of Winter” does not see herself committing a sin; she rather demands what she is supposed to get from her husband. She definitely has courage that is brought to her by her financial status. A poor woman, a slave girl, once demands sex, will immediately be judged and lynched. Such social an economic inequality is the main theme that goes through the whole “The Long Night of Winter”. With this inequality in mind, we get to see the women take on sexuality.
The writer clearly thinks that arranged marriages are a form of discrimination of women, and it surely is. In the story called "My World of the Unknown", the main character, who is also a female and a wife of a wealthy man, whom she was forced to marry, gets seduced by a serpent. The story of Eve, the serpent and the original sin is shared among all of the major world religions. Of course, it is also known in the Islamic world. However, in this story, the relationship between the woman and the serpent isn’t there to emphasize the sinful nature of the gender. It is there to show what the arranged marriage can cause. The main character falls for the serpent very fast, and she doesn’t seem to think twice before letting herself be seduced. The story demonstrates that women that lack any emotional attachment to their husbands can start cheating without the slightest feeling of guilt. Husbands who are given wives without getting to know them first cannot develop deep feeling for the latter and often treat them in a careless way. However, arranged marriages hurt women more than men, because it is more difficult for women to live their whole lives with someone they don’t love and give birth to children from someone they barely know. In the Middle East, men are allowed to have more than one wife, and women are only allowed to be married once. They are sometimes not even allowed to divorce their husbands. Such social unfairness hurt the characters of Rifaat’s stories. The next story, "Bahiyya's Eyes," carries the same meaning and looks into similar issues.
In her story called "Bahiyya's Eyes," she women, mother and daughter, come to conclusion that whatever a woman does, she will never be able to take a position of man, and man will always be the man. Everything the girl remembers from her childhood is the process of constant crying: “The whole life I went on crying and how often my mother’d tell me not to but it wasn’t any use.” (Rifaat 7) We can clearly see that there is no freedom within genders; once born a female, she was never able to perform other duties. In the Middle East, the understanding of genders is very firm. When we read this story, we understand that unfortunately Bahiyya's life is nothing but a constant struggle; she has been mistreated by her brother when she was smaller; after her marriage, which was arranged (again, no one even wonders about women’s feelings here) her husband sexually abused her. When she was younger, her mother didn’t explain her some of the basic questions of sexuality, and so she had to face her changes alone. In this part of the world, it is extremely hard to talk about sex and genders; it is considered shameful to ask older relatives about these things. Plus, it is considered shameful to complain about one’s husband; whatever happened behind the doors stays there. In fact, these women would rather die than put shame on their husbands; they can lock love towards them, but they will never show an open disrespect.
For these characters, it is extremely hard to resist. That is why, in "Bahiyya's Eyes," the woman accepts her position and isn’t trying to fight it. I understand and I don’t understand this simultaneously; nowadays, in the Middle East, there are several political groups that fight for democracy. However, there are not many of those groups, and the overall situation remains the same. In fact, the writer of the stories mentioned in this paper is not really popular among the Middle East people, many of whom still opposes this kind of literature. On a smaller scale, people just prefer to keep quiet. It can be explained with the fact that women like Bahiyya are afraid for the lives of their children and her relationship with her husband. She teaches her daughter not to fight with these rules because she thinks that acceptance will bring peace. That is the main concept of many religions in the world. Very often, fighting doesn’t save the situation, but acceptance does.
Interestingly enough, all of Alifa Rifaat’s characters are strong believers of Allah. Although they are so different from the way Islam is trying to shape their image, they keep taking care of their faith and they don’t let it disappear. I was surprised at how important faith was for these women. They couldn’t exist without it, and I felt like it wasn’t because they were taught this way. I rather felt that it was their own desire; faith helped them deal with certain problems and explained other people’s actions. Due to the growing Islamophobia, we started to forget that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share a lot of similarities and follow the same ethics. It can be surely said that all of the major religions have pretty much the same ethics; only the way they express them is different. Some of them worship their prophets and some worship only god or gods. However, their goals are the same. The women from Alifa Rifaat’s stories are all strong personalities. Sometimes they are glad to be Muslim, and sometimes they hate it and wish they were never tied to God as closely as they actually were ("Bahiyya's Eyes"). This is a contradiction that I found it very interesting and heartbreaking simultaneously. These women have gone right to dislike and disagree with the faith they were brought up in, as this faith largely discriminates them. However, they choose to love it and embrace the fact that they are Muslim. On almost every page of "Bahiyya's Eyes", the main character repeats “Allah have mercy upon her/him.” There is a common understanding that once you don’t follow the rules of the church in your life, you can no longer be considered to be the part of that church. We can only imagine how hard it might before those whose faith it’s been a part of their lives. This is one of the strongest points that Alifa Rifaat makes in her every story: you can be a feminist and protect the rights of people or your gender, you can even be homosexual, and you can still be a believer, even with such a conservative faith like Islam.
So, is liberation really possible in the Middle Eastern countries? Are people going to develop a democratic approach to their social life? And are there many women like Alifa Rifaat who are brave enough to write and publish such stories? It is too complicated to answer some of these questions. First off, in the Middle East, there is a completely different way of upbringing. Some experts even claim that in the Middle East, the understanding of gender and sexuality is so different from the Western one that it is unnecessary to try to “democratize” this part of the world. I think that while gender rights are universal, the scholar might be right when he says that the West is constantly trying to make the Middle East “more progressed”, which ultimately brings harm to the latter. However, from Alifa Rifaat’s stories that I have discussed in this paper, it becomes clear that gender rights cannot be abused like they are in the lives of her female characters. Her female characters conform rather than fight, because they know that they will not meet any approval and are afraid for their children’s future. The readers of these stories understand how threatened and vulnerable the Middle Eastern women are; how inferior to their fathers, brothers and husbands they feel. Constant fear of those men seems to surround women all the time. In the story called “An Incident in Ghobashi Household”, we find out how important it was to “find some solution until the father returns” (Rifaat 25). Their rights are abused, and they become nothing but a beautiful addition to wealthy and respectful men. Many of these women are voiceless and will remain such forever; however, there are writers like Alifa Rifaat who are trying to make a change; their patriotism makes them improve their countries for the better and protect those who has never been heard.
Works Cited
Rifʻat, Alīfah. Distant View of a Minaret: And Other Stories. London: Heinemann Educational, 1985. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
