Zawaya

The appointment of female spiritual guides endorses the aptitude of women in religious education

By: Said Elakhal

The royal initiative in Morocco to appoint female spiritual guides and preachers is a very important step on two levels:

- The first level: A religious/doctrinal level that puts an end to the male monopoly of religion, and recognizes the aptitude of women to guide and explain religion subjects to other women. Women are more entitled to address jurisprudence issues related to women, besides the ease of communication between women by virtue of the values and social norms prevailing in Maghreb societies. From another perspective, this is considered an immunization for women from any ideological or doctrinal exploitation by Jihadist or fundamentalist currents.

These currents focus primarily – in the process of polarization – on women, because they are an easier and more guaranteed intermediary to penetrate families, and expand their organizational bases. That is because a mother has an extraordinary ability to make her children adhere to her beliefs, as easily as she feeds them milk; which makes women a central canal through which society passes its culture on to younger generations. Therefore, fundamentalist currents refuse to recognize the rights of women in order to keep them as hostages in the hands of these organizations, for the purpose of using them in their obscurantist projects that they seek to achieve through violence and bombing. Many terrorists have become so under the influence of their wives.

- The second level: A national/human level based on the firm conviction of the need to ensure women’s participation in building a democratic and open society. This cannot be achieved, however, unless women undertake their functions as citizens whose rights of citizenship are guaranteed by the constitution.

Since women exercise their political rights in the management of public affairs or the election of people to take care of that, they are also entitled to be involved responsibly and consciously in the production of jurisprudence that is commensurate with their political and societal choices, so that women don’t remain as the passive minors and follower components fundamentalist trends and conservative forces insist on, and want them to be. Of course, the choice of the State to empower women to exercise their rights – just like men – is not an innovation, nor is it against religion; it’s rather a proper embodiment of the teachings of our religion for which men and women are equal in terms of guardianship: “and the believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: They enjoin what is good, and forbid what is evil.”

Since the terrorist incidents that shook the feelings of Moroccans on the night of May 16th, 2003, the Moroccan State has become dynamic in the religious field in order to contain extremism and fight the jurisprudence of the uncivilised spread by associations and movements adhering to the Wahabi movement, both by the Takfiri and the Jihadist/explosive trends.

This was clear in the letter addressed by King Mohammed VI to the first forum of alimates (female scholars) and morchidates (spiritual guides) in Skhirat on 07/17/2009, in which he said: “We are following closely and with great interest the results of this expansion, and its positive impact on the lives of citizens, and their spiritual and sectarian security, as well as the fortification of their beliefs, in order to refute suspicions and falsehoods, and face extremism, fanaticism and narrowness. You, alimates, preachers, and morchidates should work on self-improvement, and turn into an influential strength moving within the community, to reform what needs to be reformed, and raise the torch of religious and national pride in the hearts and feelings of our people. All that should be done with a firm cling to the constants of the nation and its national identity, and a full commitment to its denominational specifications.”

That was a formal confirmation of the key role played by women in the field of religious guidance, which is no longer reserved to men alone. For women to carry out their preaching functions and religious guidance tasks, the concerned States should allow women to join – as full members – religious councils at all levels, including fatwa institutions, and enable them to practice religious supervision within mosques, whether through lessons or preaching. Prior to all that, it is imperative to provide female spiritual guides with a sound and harmonious religious formation enriched with values and principles of human rights, and open to today’s culture. That formation should also be able to assimilate the social reality in its dynamism. This requires the renewal of the religious discourse, and liberation from the captivity of old jurisprudence that is incompatible with science and human values. “In this sense, you are invited today to contribute effectively in the fight against underdevelopment and exclusion, and to enlighten minds and hearts, and purify them from rickety thinking and bad beliefs, and from extremism and narrowness penchants.”

Dr. Suhaila Zain Al-Abidine raises in her article entitled “Are the scholars of the nation only men and not women?”, published on “Al-Khaleej” newspaper on April 13th, 2006, the following questions: “I do not know until when men will reserve science, thought and researching the issues of the nation for themselves? And until when will the nation’s women remain marginalized and excluded? And how can the nation’s scholars look for ways to unify it while they differentiate between its men and women?”