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COMPETING NARRATIVES: HISTORIES OF THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT IN IRAQ, 1910–58

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2008

Noga Efrati
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Extract

The lines dividing history, ideology, and politics are thinly drawn. Researchers of Iraq have observed that over the years institutions and ideological movements, both inside the country and in the West, have “hijacked” the country's history. The Iraqi state's grand narratives have excluded competing histories from the days of Satiʿ al-Husri, the “father of Iraqi education,” who introduced Arab history into the curriculum in order to foster Arab nationalism, up to the massive project of rewriting Iraqi history under the Baʿth regime. Western interests, too, from the time of the British-backed monarchy until the present day, have influenced the writing of Iraqi history—utilizing it in a way that would justify their foreign policies.

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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , August 2008 , pp. 445 - 466
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

NOTES

Author's note: The research for this article was carried out during my years as a Moshe Arad Young Truman Scholar at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I am grateful for the institute's generous support. I also thank the anonymous IJMES reviewers for their useful comments.

1 See, for example, Simon, Reeva, Iraq Between the Two World Wars (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; idem, “The Teaching of History in Iraq Before the Rashid Ali Coup of 1941,” Middle Eastern Studies 22 (1986): 37–51; Baram, Amatzia, Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Baʿthist Iraq (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Davis, Eric, Memories of State (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

2 Farouk-Sluglett, Marion and Sluglett, Peter, “The Historiography of Modern Iraq,” American Historical Review 96 (1991): 1408–21Google Scholar; Dina, Rizk Khoury, “History and Historiography of Modern Iraq,” MESA Bulletin 39 (2005): 64–78Google Scholar.

3 Ingrams, Doreen, The Awakened: Women in Iraq (London: Third World Center, 1983)Google Scholar. The work of Ismael, Jacqueline S. and Ismael, Shereen T., “Gender and State in Iraq,” in Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East, ed. Joseph, Suad (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 185–211Google Scholar, also tends toward this approach as does my article, “The Other ‘Awakening’ in Iraq: The Women's Movement in the First Half of the Twentieth Century,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 31 (2004): 153–73.

4 Cobbett, Deborah, “Women in Iraq,” in Saddam's Iraq: Revolution or Reaction? ed. Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq (CARDRI) (London: Zed Books, 1989), 120–37Google Scholar. A similar tendency can be discerned in Farouk-Sluglett, Marion, “Liberation or Repression? Pan-Arab Nationalism and the Women's Movement in Iraq,” in Iraq: Power and Society, ed. Hopwood, Derek et al. (Reading, N.Y.: Ithaca Press, 1993), 51–73Google Scholar. Efforts to create a more inclusive picture can be found in Martina Kamp, “Abschied von der Abaya? Eine historische Interpretation zur politischen und sozio-ökonomischen Situation irakischer Frauen während der Monarchie” (master's thesis, Hamburg University, 1997) and al-Ali, Nadje Sadig, Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present (London: Zed Books, 2007)Google Scholar.

5 Daʾud, Sabiha al-Shaykh, Awwal al-Tariq ila al-Nahda al-Niswiyya fi al-ʿIraq (Baghdad: al-Rabita, 1958), 175Google Scholar; al-Hawadith, 18 June 1946, 2.

6 Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978), 5–361; Farouk-Sluglett, Marion and Sluglett, Peter “The Transformation of Land Tenure and Rural Social Structure in Central and Southern Iraq, c. 1870–1958,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 15 (1983): 491–505CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Woodsmall, Ruth Frances and Johnson, Charlotte, Study of the Role of Women, Their Activities and Organizations in Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Syria (New York: International Federation of Business and Professional Women, 1956), 48Google Scholar.

8 See Efrati, “The Other ‘Awakening’ in Iraq,” 170, fn. 117.

9 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq.

10 Members were also young, urban dwellers, primarily students and single women. See Batatu, The Old Social Classes, 1205; Khadduri, Majid, Republican ʿIraq (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), 121Google Scholar; Mubejel Baban, interview by author, London, 20 August 1997; Bushra Perto, interview by author, London, 18 August 1997. Both Baban and Perto were senior members of the league under the monarchy.

11 Kitabat al-Rafiq Fahd, 2nd ed. (Baghdad, 1977), 407–13; Naziha al-Dulaymi, al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya (Baghdad: al-Rabita, n.d.): 46–47; al-Dulaymi, Naziha, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” al-Thaqafa al-Jadida 5 (1982): 112Google Scholar.

12 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq. For her institutional affiliations, see Sada al-Ahali, 5 July 1951, 2; Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 179; al-Zaman, 28 June 1946, 2, and 27 June 1948, 2. The union's narrative also found its way into period newspapers and periodicals. See, for example, Sh., ʿA., “al-Nahda al-Niswiyya fi al-ʿIraq,” al-Muʿallim al-Jadid 18 (1955): 78–85Google Scholar; Suad al-Umari, “Participation of Women in Community Life in Iraq,” International Women's News, June 1956, 535–36. It can also be learned from interviews conducted by Ruth Woodsmall in 1955 with union members. These interviews are kept at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.

13 Al-Dulaymi, al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya (according to al-Dulaymi the year of this book's publication is 1950); Naziha al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 104–16. The league narrative could also be learned from the speech of its representative in the 1953 international women's conference in Copenhagen and from post-1958 press as well as from interviews with other leaders of the league, especially Mubejel Baban and Bushra Perto. See Al-Muʾtamar al-Nisaʾi al-ʿAlami al-Munʿaqad fi Copenhagen (Baghdad: al-Rabita, 1954). References may also be found in the book of another leading Communist activist, Khayri, Suʿad, Thawrat 14 Tammuz (Beirut: Dar Ibn Khaldun, 1980)Google Scholar.

14 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 130–34; al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 106.

15 Scholars studying the emergence of Egyptian feminism are now reconsidering Amin's role. See, for example, Baron, Beth, The Women's Awakening in Egypt (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Badran, Margot, Feminists, Islam and Nation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Ahmed, Leila, Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

16 Khidir al-ʿAbasi, Tahrir al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya Bayna Shaʿirayn al-Zahawi wa-l-Rusafi (Baghdad: Matbaʿat al-Umma, n.d.), 5, 25, 39–47; Diwan Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi (Beirut: al-ʿAwda, 1972), 316–28; Hilal Naji, al-Zahawi (Cairo: Dar al-ʿArab, n.d.), 162–65; al-Rashudi, ʿAbd al-Hamid, ed., al-Zahawi: Dirasat wa-Nusus (Beirut: Maktabat al-Haya, 1966), 112–17Google Scholar.

17 For the full text of this article, see al-Rashudi, al-Zahawi, 112–17. For more about the reactions to the article, see al-ʿAbasi, Tahrir, 26–38, and al-ʿUmari, Khayri, Hikayat Siyasiyya min Taʾrikh al-ʿIraq al-Hadith (Baghdad: Dar al-Qadisiyya, 1980), 96–99Google Scholar.

18 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 157, 162, 204–5; al-Darbandi, ʿAbd al-Rahman Sulayman, Dirasat ʿan al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya al-Muʿasira, 2 vols. (Baghdad: Dar al-Basri, 1968), 1: 46Google Scholar; al-ʿAbasi, Tahrir, 19–20; al-Hilali, ʿAbd al-Razzaq, Taʿrikh al-Taʾlim fi al-ʿIraq fi al-ʿAhd al-ʿUthmani, 1638–1917 (Baghdad: Sharikat al-Tabʿ wa-l-Nashr al-Ahliyya, 1959), 158–61Google Scholar. For more about al-Zahawi see Khoury, Dina Rizk, “Looking at the Modern: A Biography of an Iraqi Modernist,” in Auto/Biography and the Construction of Identity in the Middle East, ed. Fay, Mary Ann (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 109–24Google Scholar.

19 See for example ʿAbd al-Razzaq al-Hilali, “Al-Shaʿir al-Faylasuf Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi,” in the introduction to Diwan Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi, Qaf-Haʾ; al-Din, Yusuf ʿIzz, Al-Shiʿr al-ʿIraqi al-Hadith (Cairo: al-Maʿarif, 1977), 103, 141–43Google Scholar.

20 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 134; al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 106.

21 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 130–33; al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 106.

22 al-Rusafi, Maʿruf, Diwan al-Rusafi (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-Ahliyya, 1910), 71–75Google Scholar; Izzidin, Yousif, “The Emancipation of Iraqi Women,” Bulletin of the College of Arts, Baghdad University 1 (1959): 35–37Google Scholar.

23 al-Rusafi, Maʿruf, Diwan al-Rusafi, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Baghdad: Afaq ʿArabiyya, 1986), 2:350–58Google Scholar.

24 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 130–31; al-ʿUmari, Hikayat, 101–2; Intelligence Report No. 7, 1 April 1922, National Archives of India, New Delhi (NAI), Baghdad High Commission File (BHCF), Internal Intelligence Reports 19/1, vol. III. For more about al-Rusafi and al-Zahawi, see Walther, Wiebke, “From Women's Problems to Women as Images in Modern Iraqi Poetry,” Die Welt des Islams 36 (1996): 219–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 128–30, 137–38.

26 Ibid., 136–37, 242; Special Report on the Progress of Iraq During the Period 1920–1931, in Iraq Administration Reports: 1914–1932, 10 vols., sources established by Robert L. Jarman (Slough: Archive Editions, 1992), 10:232.

27 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 106; Khayri, Thawrat 14 Tammuz, 74–75; Tariq al-Shaʿb, 1 April 1979.

28 Batatu, The Old Social Classes, 394–98; al-ʿUmari, Hikayat, esp. 105–6, 126–28.

29 Cf. Baron, The Women's Awakening in Egypt; Badran, Feminists, Islam and Nation, 14–16; Kandiyoti, Deniz, “End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey,” in Women, Islam and the State, ed. Kandiyoti, Deniz (London: Macmillan, 1991), 26–27Google Scholar; Paidar, Parvin, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 48–49, 92Google Scholar.

30 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 48–49.

31 Al-Lisan 1(1919): 183–84. See more in Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 55; Intelligence Report No. 22, 1 October 1921, NAI, BHCF, Internal Intelligence Reports 19/1, vol. II.

32 Daʾud incorrectly dated that meeting in May 1918. Cf. Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 49–51, with The Letters of Gertrude Bell, 2 vols., selected and edited by Lady Bell (London: Ernest Benn, 1927), 2:457.

33 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 27–35. See also Al-Muʾtamar al-Nisaʾi al-ʿAlami, 21; al-Fikr al-Jadid, 10 March 1973, 4.

34 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 27–35; al-Fikr al-Jadid, 10 March 1973, 4. For more about women's participation in the revolt, see Butti, Rufaʾil, “al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya al-Haditha,” al-Kitab 4 (November 1947): 1877Google Scholar; al-ʿArusa, 11 July 1928, 9; al-Darbandi, Dirasat, 2: 250–51; al-Khaqani, ʿAli, “Shaʿirat fi Thawrat al-ʿIshrin,” in Thawrat al-ʿIshrin fi Dhikraha al-Khamsin, ed. al-Din, Muhammad ʿAli Kamal (Najaf: Dar al-Tadamun, 1971), 353–75Google Scholar.

35 Cf. Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 85–92 with al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,”106.

36 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 85-87; al-ʿUmari, Hikayat, 117–18; al-ʿArusa, 4 July 1928, 3; Batatu, The Old Social Classes, 323.

37 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 87-89; al-ʿArusa, 4 July 1928, 3; al-Istiqlal, 3 February 1923, 2, as quoted in Kashaf Mawduʿat al-Marʾa fi Jaridat al-Istiqlal: 1920–1960 (Baghdad: n.p., 1980), 33.

38 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 89, 119.

39 Stevens, E. S., “The Woman Movement [sic] in Iraq,” The Near East and India 10 (October 1929): 400Google Scholar.

40 See quotes from Daʾud's article published in al-Bilad on 30 October 1929 (and not in October 1930, as she mistakenly claimed) in Awwal al-Tariq, 86, and al-ʿUmari, Hikayat, 120–21.

41 See, for example, al-ʿAbasi, Tahrir, 48–50.

42 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 85.

43 Stevens, “The Woman Movement,” 400; Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 92; al-ʿUmari, Hikayat, 118.

44 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 87–88, 141–42, 204–5.

45 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 106.

46 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 52, 55–56; Intelligence Report No. 7.

47 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 51–82, 120–24, 136–37; al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 106; al-Fikr al-Jadid, 24 March 1973, 4.

48 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 107.

49 Batatu, The Old Social Classes, 405–9.

50 Ibid., 406.

51 Iraq Police, Abstract of Intelligence, vol. X, Basra, 25 January 1930, NAI, BHCF.

52 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 205–8. See also al-Darbandi, Dirasat, 1:162–64.

53 Wife of Muhammad Fadil al-Jamali, who filled high posts at the Ministry of Education in the 1930s and was foreign minister in 1946, 1947, and 1952 and prime minister between 1953 and 1954.

54 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 181; Kadry, Hind Tahsin, Women's Education in Iraq (Baghdad: n.p., 1958), 26Google Scholar; Woodsmall, Study, 48–49; Woodsmall Papers, “Women's Activities.”

55 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 177.

56 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 107.

57 Woodsmall, Study, 48; al-Darbandi, Dirasat, 1:227.

58 Al-Istiqlal, 7 February 1936, 1, 3; al-Istiqlal, 16 February 1936, 3.

59 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 107; Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 156, 158–59.

60 According to Daʾud, 1942 and according to al-Dulaymi, 1943.

61 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 173–74.

62 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 108.

63 Ibid., 108–9.

64 Woodsmall, Study, 48.

65 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 175–81; Woodsmall Papers, “Women's Activities.”

66 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 108–9.

67 Ibid., Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 175; n.a., Al-Muʾtamar al-Nisaʾi al-ʿArabi (Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1944), 214–19, 268–71; Woodsmall, Study, 48. The precise date of the formation of the union is difficult to ascertain; however, it celebrated the first anniversary of its establishment in June 1946. See al-Hawadith, 18 June 1946, 2.

68 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 175; al-Hawadith, 18 June 1946, 2.

69 Al-Hawadith, 18 June 1946, 2.

70 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 109.

71 Woodsmall, Study, 48.

72 Daʾud, Awwal al-Tariq, 144–47, 169–70, 176–77, 232, 235–37; ʿA. Sh., “al-Nahda,” 79–81. See also Woodsmall, Study, 39, 49; al-Zaman, 8 September 1947, 2; 23 May 1948, 2; 12 July 1953, 4; 6 November 1956, 4; and 16 October 1957, 2; Liwaʾ al-Istiqlal, 22 June 1949, 2.

73 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 107, 109; al-Dulaymi, al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya, 48–50; Fleischmann, Ellen, “The Other ‘Awakening’: The Emergence of Women's Movements in the Modern Middle East, 1900–1940,” in A Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East, ed. Meriwether, Margaret L. and Tucker, Judith E. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999), 102Google Scholar.

74 Al-Umari, “Participation,” 535–36.

75 Al-Zaman, 28 June 1946, 2; Warriner, Doreen, Land Reform and Development in the Middle East (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1957), 181Google Scholar.

76 Liwaʾ al-Istiqlal, 22 June 1949, 2; al-Hawadith, 9 July 1949, 2.

77 ʿA. Sh., “al-Nahda,” 84–85.

78 In the mid 1950s the Iraqi government admitted that accurate statistics concerning births, deaths, and infant mortality were unavailable and noted that even estimates could not be made. See al-Iqtisad, Wizarat, al-Daʾira al-Raʾisiyya li-l-Ihsaʾ, Al-Majmuʿa al-Ihsaʾiyya al-Sanawiyya al-ʿAmma, 1955 (Baghdad, Matbaʿat al-Zahraʾ, 1956), 229Google Scholar.

79 Dr. Laimana Zaki, 10 February 1955, Woodsmall Papers, Box 62, Folder 5.

80 Dann, Uriel, Iraq Under Qassem (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1969), 117;Google Scholar Batatu, The Old Social Classes, 705, 882–83; Farouk-Sluglett, “Liberation or Repression?,” 64.

81 “Matbaʿat al-Hizb, Muhakamat al-Rafiq Fahd, Awwal Tanzim Nisaʾi, al-Sijn,” al-Thaqafa al-Jadida 5 (1982): 56–81; Suʿad Khairi, “Torture in Iraq: A Personal Testimony,” in Saddam's Iraq, 120–37.

82 Following the signing of the Portsmouth Agreement, the popular uprising aimed at prolonging the Anglo–Iraqi Treaty.

83 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 110; Sada al-Ahali, 8 October 1951, 2–3.

84 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 110. See also al-Ali, Iraqi Women, 86–87.

85 Bahaʾ al-Din Nuri, Mudhakirat Bahaʾ al-Din Nuri (London, 2001), 144.

86 Interview with Bushra Perto.

87 Al-Muʾtamar al-Nisaʾi al-ʿAlami, 23.

88 Al-Dulaymi, “Rabitat al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya,” 111–13; al-Dulaymi, Al-Marʾa al-ʿIraqiyya, 46–47; Al-Muʾtamar al-Nisaʾi al-ʿalami, 19–23; “Al-Conference al-Awwal li-Rabitat al-Difaʿ ʿan Huquq al-Marʾa 10/3/1955,” al-Thaqafa al-Jadida 5 (1982): 122–23; interviews with Mubejel Baban and Bushra Perto.

89 Fleischmann, summing up scholarly works on the development of women's movements in the Middle East, points out these themes. See “The Other ‘Awakening,’” 89–139.

90 See Efrati, “The Other ‘Awakening’ in Iraq,” 162.

91 Monroe, Paul, Report of the Educational Inquiry Commission (Baghdad: Government Press, 1932), 97, 131–32Google Scholar.

92 See Stearn, Roger T., “Ingrams, Doreen Constance (1906–1997),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004Google Scholar.

93 Davis, Memories of State, 148–99; Tariq Nafiʿ al-Hamdani, “al-Haraka al-Niswiyya,” in Hadarat al-ʿIraq, 13 vols. (Baghdad: Dar al-Hurriyya li-l-Tibaʿa, 1985), 13:181–208.

94 Ismael and Ismael, “Gender,” 193; Dann, Iraq, 321.

95 GFIW, “The Iraqi Woman Association” and the Role of the Iraqi Communist Party in Emptying It of Its Social Essence (Baghdad: n.p., 1980)Google Scholar.

96 Ingrams, The Awakened, 111.

97 Cobbett, “Women in Iraq,” 120.

98 Fran Hazelton (former secretary of CARDRI), e-mail message to author, 24 January 2008.