Page 192 - Arabian Studies (V)

180 Arabian Studies V
Notes

1. The remarks of al-Bayhani in Ustadh al-mar’ah provide a typical
example of commentary on this subject. This book ostensibly aims to
educate Muslim women and embodies a traditional defence and interpreta­
tion of the position of women in Islam:
Wa-’l-‘arab qabl al-islam kanu la yuwarrithuna ’1-nisa’ jam!‘an, al-
ummahat wa-’l-akhawat wa-’l-banat wa-’l-zawjat, wa-innama yuwar­
rithuna min al-mayyit akha-hu al-kabir aw ibn ‘ammi-hi aw walada-hu
al-baligh al-qadir ‘ala himayat al-dhimar wa-hirasat al-dar, wa-’l-saghir
wa-’l-da‘If alladhi la yahmil al-silah la miratha la-hu wa-la shay’a
‘alayhi min nafaqat ai-harb wa-tahammul al-diyat, wa-’l-salih min-
hum kan yatakaffal aytam al-mayyit wa-yuhsin ilayhim bi-qadr ma
yastatT, wa-la yazal kathlr min al-aTab wa-sukkan al-badiyah
mutamassikin bi-hadhihi M-‘adah al-mukhalifah li-ahkam al-sharTah
fi tawrlth al-nisa’, wa-rubbama ja‘alu al-tarikah waqfan ‘ala ’1-awlad al-
dhukur dun al-inath, wa-rubbama nadhar al-mayyit fi akhirhayati-hi bi-
jaml* mumtalikati-hi li-man sha’ min aqaribi-hi al-rijal takhallusan
wa-firaran min qada’ Allah ‘alay-hi bi-Isal al-huquq fla mustahiqqi-
ha.
Muhammad Salim al-Bayhani, Ustadh al-mar’ah, Cairo, 3rd cdn., n.d.,
279-80.
2. Among ethnographers, Jean Cuisenier has addressed himself most
directly to the questions considered here. See in particular, Jean Cuisenier,
Economic et parent6: leurs affinites de structure dans le domaine turc et
dans le domaine arabe, Paris, 1975. In his analysis of a community in
Tunisia, Cuisenier adopts the terms of his informants, the opposition of
'urf and shari'ah, and argues that a change has been taking place from 'urf
patterns to Islamic in the recent past. He accepts the statements of infor­
mants that treat the disappearance of the great household and the increase
in inheritance by women during the past generation as evidence of a transi­
tion from one set of rules to another.
Fundamental changes in household organisation have no doubt occurred
in Tunisia just as these are occurring in Yemen following monetarisation of
the economy, national political integration, and absorption of the local
grain economy into the international grain market. The rich accounts of
Cuisenier’s informants do not, however, bear out Cuisenier’s assumption
that in local custom, in ’urf, women had no claim to land. Even Cuisenier,
although he begins his analysis with the opposition of 'urf and shari'ah,
concludes the section containing the transcriptions of interviews with infor­
mants in a much less rigid manner (op. cit., 430):

Ainsi dans l’organisation social traditionelle, les droits sont-ils transmis
dans des conjonctures familiales complexes, ouvrant la possibility de se
referer a des rdgles differentes, de jouer, alternativement, avec la
coutume et avec la loi, avec la solidarity et avec l’yquite. Les rygles
traditionelles de transmission de patrimoine ne sont pas, aujourd’hui, a