Gender

Gender, Islam, and Politics - Iran

Farhad Kazemi

ISLAM and gender is a controversial problem for scholars and analysts of the Middle East. Unfortunately, the debate on this issue has at times become highly acrimonious and not always placed in its proper historical or sociological contexts (see AbuKhalil, 1993). From one point of view, Islam is praised for its historically liberating role for women in Arabia and elsewhere. Yet another perspective holds either the religion or some of its practices and practitioners accountable for the lower stares and inferior legal rights of women in Islamic countries than other parts of the world. Still other views fall somewhere in the middle of these two positions.

Broadly speaking, two related gender issues exacerbate the problem: one is attitudinal and based on beliefs and values, the other relates to legal doctrines. The attitudinal component concerns the prevalence in much of the Middle East of certain patriarchal values, learned through the socialization experience, on women and gender roles. The legal dimension pertains to the essentially discriminatory nature of Islamic personal stares laws and the criminal code when applied to women. The combination of these two factors--patriarchal attitudes and legal strictures--places women in a highly disadvantageous position in the social order. Clearly, many Islamic countries do not apply either the full Islamic criminal code or the complete version of personal stares laws to their citizens. The intensity of patriarchal values also varies both within one country and from one Islamic society to another. Nonetheless, the two themes of patriarchy and legal discrimination continue to remain central to the debate on Islam and gender.

The problem is further complicated by strong positions that many Islamists have taken on gender segregation in public space and in favor of other non-egalitarian gender views. In their own particular way, the Islamist movements have centralized the women's issue both in their extensive discourse on the subject as well as in their behavior in public space. In many ways, and as Talhami points out, the issue of women is the

   Achilles' heel of the Islamist movement, the one issue that could not be
   obscured by an excess of idealism and romanticization of the classic age of
   Islam or by an overemphasis on political-economic argumentation (1996, p.
   123).

Patriarchy

The question of patriarchy and its persistence in the Middle East has received a great deal of attention in the scholarly literature (Ahmed, 1992; Barakat, 1993; Moghadam, 1993; Lindholm, 1996; Tohidi, 1996). Studies of the women's movement and early feminists have also focused on this problem in the Middle East (see, e.g., Nelson, 1996; Badran, 1995; Sanasarian, 1982). Patriarchal beliefs have been part and parcel of Middle East history, as they have been in much of the world. It is clear that patriarchal attitudes antecede the emergence of Islam in the area. Although these attitudes have sources beyond a specific religion, religious traditions and practices can sometimes reinforce their main thrust. This has indeed been the case with Islam regarding its patriarchal foundations and practices.

The Middle East, then, is not necessarily a lone exception to this pervasive phenomenon. Whether due to patriarchal views or other causes, full gender equality remains elusive everywhere in the world. A recent global study of women and politics concludes that "in no country do women have political status, access, or influence equal to men. The sweep of women's political subordination encompasses the great variety of cultures, economic arrangements, and regimes in which they live" (Chowdhury and Nelson, 1994, p. 3).

What perhaps distinguishes the Middle East is the slower rate of change in transformation of these views toward a more egalitarian gender perspective. The Middle East and North Africa, as Shafik (1996, p. 2) points out, exhibit

   ... the largest gender gap of any region in the world, despite the
   considerable evidence that gender equality is associated with higher
   economic growth and improved human development. Middle Eastern and North
   African women are consistently under represented in schools and labor
   force, they die relatively younger than their sisters in other parts of the
   world, and they give birth to a large number of closely-spaced children
   that jeopardizes their own and their children's health.

The gender gap in the Middle East has not been eliminated with either greater wealth and increased national income in the region, or other features associated with the modern nation-state. Sharabi (1988) argues that for the Arab world, at least, the confluence of patriarchy and efforts at achieving modernity has in fact created a distorted process of social change in the form of dependent capitalism and modernization. This process, led by petty bourgeoisie, has perpetuated key social features of the former underdeveloped society in the form of, what Sharabi calls, neopatriarchy--a new manifestation of the traditional patriarchal system.

It would be difficult to deny the relevance of patriarchy to the Middle East, even though patriarchy is a problematic concept for analysis. As Kandioyti (1991a, p. 27) maintains, a better way to examine systems of male dominance is perhaps "through analyses of women's strategies of dealing with them." She proposes the investigation of different forms of "patriarchal bargains" that take place between women and established male authority structure. Through such analysis of women's strategies and their "variations according to class, caste, and ethnicity" the nature of gender ideology can be better tapped. Her own examples drawn from the subsaharan Africa and the Middle East provide useful illustrations of the problem.

Related to this discussion are the multiple strategies that segments of Iranian women have used to contain or limit the impact of patriarchal controls imposed upon them soon after the Islamic revolution. As explained by Friedl (1994), Iranian women have adopted various strategies to resist the dominant and prevailing male power. Some of these strategies (patriarchal bargains) take advantage of the resources available to women in their workplace or at home. Others take the government officials and the state to task demanding that they deliver on their lofty promises of gender equality and social justice (see Ramazani, 1993).

These women have challenged authority in an operative environment that severely constrains their role and imposes enormous restrictions on their daily behavior. In spite of these limitations, the Iranian women have been able to make some gains and improve incrementally their collective lot. Such gains have by no means been due solely to the patriarchal bargain, especially since these bargains tend to be individualistic rather than collective. There have been a number of other critical factors (the impact of the Iran-Iraq war, the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, and women's organized activism) that help explain the process. However, given the limitation on their power base in an androcentric society,

   women can be expected to intensify their use of the `weapons of the weak,'
   that is, manipulation of resources and resistance to restrictive rule to
   exert control over issues important to them (Friedl, 1994, p. 166).

Patriarchy, then, is an issue of some importance in the Middle East that goes beyond the confines of religious dogma. Islamic doctrine and its emphasis on a structure of authority and command, however, have also helped reinforce the patriarchal norm in the Middle East. The real question is not so much the notion of patriarchy's presence in the Middle East but rather the best way to study this problem and assess its independent impact. Unless such a step is taken, the enormously deleterious impact of patriarchalism on gender equality cannot be easily eradicated.

Legal Strictures: Personal Status and Criminal Code

It is quite clear that in their basic and pure form Islamic personal status laws discriminate against women in the areas of inheritance, divorce, marriage, and child custody rights. A woman's inheritance from her parents is half that of a male sibling. Despite certain restrictions, a man can divorce a spouse rather freely while a woman's right to do so is substantially more restrictive. Men can engage in polygamy, women cannot. In twelver Shi'i Islam, the majority Muslim sect in Iran, marriage based on a temporary contract (muta'a) for a specified time is allowed. Although women also partake of temporary marriage, restrictions on them are more stringent (see Haeri, 1989). Women's rights to child custody in cases of divorce are restricted to the first two years after the child's birth. Other related discriminatory clauses abound in Islamic family law.

The central problem with reform of personal status laws, and hence the general status of women, has a lot to do with the intimate connection between these laws and their sources in the Quran, the Traditions, or the legislation that is derived from them. Therefore, and as Beck and Keddie (1978, p. 25) point out,

   innovators in this, as in many other matters, have to deal not merely with
   some customary belief that may be relatively easily replaced by another,
   once the newer one becomes more functional, but with the heart of religion,
   which is the holy law or sharia.

Two additional aspects of the family law further complicate the situation. First, the law is highly differentiated along gender lines with clear and pronounced sets of obligations and duties that are specific to one gender or another. One is hard pressed to find other Islamic laws that are so dramatically delineated along gender lines.

Second, many of the central features of family law remain in force in the Muslim world even as other Islamic laws, unrelated to personal status, have gone through significant changes and modifications (see Imam, 1996, p. 2). As Ahmed indicates,

   family law is the cornerstone of the system of male privilege set up by
   establishment Islam. That it is still preserved almost intact signals the
   existence of enormously powerful forces within Middle Eastern societies
   determined to uphold male privilege and control over women (1992, p. 242).

A further complication in reform of personal status law is the special role and place that Islamic practices have assigned to the family. The Islamic tradition has always emphasized the role of the family and its critical importance as the backbone of a moral and ethical society. Women are praised as the carriers of virtue and the key agents of socialization for children. Family values, and the women's essential role in their propagation, are recognized and given special praise in the extensive discourse on the subject. This purist view of the family has probably also harnessed some of the attempts to modify the ideal type.

The difficulties of reforming the family law in much of the Middle East have been immense. In parts of the Middle East region, especially in some of the Gulf states, revisions of family law have been essentially non-existent (see Tetreault and al-Mughni, 1995; Mir-Hosseini, 1993). In Iran, the progressive Pahlavi reforms of the personal status law in 1967 (Bagley, 1971) and 1974 were repealed by the revolutionary government of Ayatollah Khomeini. In place of the newly-acquired legal protection that women had gained in marriage and divorce, the Islamic regime instituted a set of highly restrictive traditional sharia laws and practices, including encouragement of temporary marriage. Even in Turkey, where family law reforms have been extensive and have remained basically stable, popular practices do not always correspond to the law. Although bold for its time, the Ataturk 1926 Civil Code which revised family law now "seems outdated to many Turkish feminists" (Mayer, 1995, p. 444). Implicit acceptance of domestic violence and the fate of battered women by some Turkish courts have prompted protest and action by the feminists. The creation of the Purple Roof Women's Shelter Foundation in 1990 in Istanbul was the feminists' collective effort to combat abusive family situations (Arat, 1998, pp. 120-123).

In Jordan, where women's progress is approvingly noted by many observers, personal status laws remain discriminatory and sexist. This has led Brand to call the law "the most explicitly sexist" in Jordan. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that "what few protections are included in the law are not realized in practice" (Brand, 1998, p. 107). Similar to the Turkish case, women feel that full implementation of the law (even with its discriminatory features) will help alleviate some of the most blatant gender abuses. In Lebanon, as Shehedah points out,

   while the Lebanese constitution and civil law treat single women as equal
   to men in most matters, women are relegated to second-class status in civil
   law once they are married and become wards of their husbands (1998, p.
   502).

In other words, a single woman is in effect penalized upon marriage.

The ebbs and flows of these reforms have taken their toll in Egypt, with progressive laws being replaced by more restricted versions. A relevant case in point is the 1985 repeal of Law 44 by Egypt's High Constitutional Court. This law had been based on Sadat's 1979 presidential decree and the approved People's Assembly version of 1985. The new legislation revised some of the features of the 1929 personal status law by giving more freedom to women in cases involving the husband's second marriage and divorce (Brown, 1997, pp. 195-198; Talhami, 1996, pp. 102-122; see also Rugh, 1984). The debates and controversies surrounding the process of its repeal were vivid reminders of how deeply rooted the traditional family law provisions are among the populace. In a small step toward a more progressive legal status for women, the February 2000 reform in Egyptian marriage laws gave women limited divorce rights.

These experiences have prompted some Egyptian feminists to use available legal norms to circumvent the restrictions of family law. Since in Islamic law, marriage is an agreed contract between two parties, some Egyptian couples have drafted their own agreement that gives equal rights to both partners. The blueprint for such contracts, Vasiqah `Aqd Zawaj (Document of Marriage Contract), was prepared by Egyptian feminists and included all the legal and religious rationales and justifications as well as the appropriate reference to the Quran (surah al-Rum, Aya 20). The document is accompanied by a tightly argued five-page circular that justifies the legality of the new marriage contract (Zulfaqar, 1995). Although no court of law has formally approved this new marriage contract, it nevertheless remains an important bold attempt within the system to voluntarily improve the formal status of women and provide them with greater legal protection.

Even more dramatic is the case of the Cairo University professor, Nasr Abu Zeid, where Islamists brought a lawsuit against him to force an involuntary divorce from his wife (al-Sayyid, 1994, pp. 277-280; Weaver, 1998, pp. 38-48). Abu Zeid's guilt was his scholarly writings, which, in the eyes of some zealots, had questioned fundamental Islamic precepts. Accordingly, Abu Zeid was declared an apostate and, hence in accordance with Islamic law, he could not remain married to a Muslim woman.

The long and tortuous legal battles that have taken place since 1993 did not always go in Abu Zeid's favor. Although the government attempted to prevent such cases by approving legislation banning hisba (accountability) law suits by individuals unrelated to the couple, the effort did not bring an end to this bizarre episode. The failure of the final court of appeal to declare a judgment in favor of Abu Zeid resulted in the involuntary exile of the married couple from Egypt to Europe. This case dramatizes, yet once again, the resiliency of attitudes on matters related to the legal status of the family and the potential for abuse inherent in the current family law.

Islamic criminal code is also discriminatory to women. Based on the Biblical concept of talion, the code restricts the role of the state in criminal matters making it essentially an adjudicator rather than a principal party to the dispute. Conviction is, hence, heavily dependent on witnesses' testimonies. The testimony of a woman is viewed as half as valuable as of a man's. Additionally, testimonies of women alone, irrespective of their numbers and validity, are not sufficient to convict a murderer. In all cases, a male witness is required for validation.

In countries where these codes are rigidly applied, their collective impact is particularly detrimental to women. In effect, these sets of laws and regulations codify and legalize women's status as second class citizens. Variants of these laws are present in Islamic countries as diverse as Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, the Sudan, and elsewhere. It is interesting to note that even the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam which posits equality of woman and man in "human dignity," does not find the sexes equal in "rights" (Mayer, 1994, p. 330).

Corollary to legal restrictions, there are also attempts in some Islamic countries to segregate men and women in public spaces (see Milani, 1992). The moral imperative that dictates such a view may be hard to fathom, but it is advanced by the Islamists as a justification for enforced separateness. The arenas for these divisions are vast and include public transportation, all levels of education, even parts of the work place. Many of these forced regulations are openly resisted by women. No less common is clandestine or surreptitious resistance in the classic mode of the "weapons of the weak." Numerous examples of these types of behavior abound in revolutionary Iran and in other countries.

This separateness is further reinforced through application of female veiling and the imposition of penalties for its non-observance. An important distinction needs to be made between voluntary veiling and veiling imposed by the state. For example, Cairene lower middle-class women don the hejab (veil) for economic and social class reasons and as a way to accommodate traditional family values while, at the same time, being able to enter and remain in the male-dominated work place (MacLeod, 1991).

Voluntary veiling has also been used as a symbolic act of protest against authoritarian regimes and their policies in both Egypt and pre-revolutionary Iran. The recent cases of voluntary veiling in Turkey's university campuses and among the Islamists can also be viewed both as an act of protest and an affirmation of Islamic identity. Gole's designation of such behavior as "symbolic capital" is apt as it publicly identifies "the emergence of a new figure, the female Islamist intellectual" (Gole, 1996, p. 5). As she points out, this type of veiling is not a case of gradual and smooth outgrowing of tradition.

   On the contrary, it is the outcome of a new interpretation of Islamic
   religion by the recently urbanized and educated social groups who have
   broken away from traditional popular interpretations and practices and
   politicized religion as an assertion of their collective identity against
   modernity (Gole, 1996, pp. 5, 83-130).

As valid as the various explanations for veiling may be, the really critical issue is the direct role of the state in the process. When the state forces women to veil or unveil (as in the case of Iran in 1936 and 1980, respectively), then there exists a serious problem. Similarly, it can be argued that pressures brought upon women by the Islamists to veil is yet another example of forced imposition. Although there may be some merit to the argument, the central concern rests with the state's coercive power in forcing compliance with veiling regulations.

Gender and the State

Through its powerful institutions, policies, and programs, the state can have both positive and negative impacts on Middle Eastern women. This impact can be observed in several domains (see Norton et al., 1997; Kandiyoti, 1991b). Perhaps the most important is in the broadly-defined economic sphere (see Moghadam, 1993). Economic empowerment is the key structural factor that direcdy promotes gender equality. Unless women have economic independence, or at least some degree of economic autonomy, the struggle for equality is less viable.

The state can help women's empowerment by facilitating their entrance into the job market. Much of this is predicated on the prior role of the state in raising the level of literacy and educational attainment among women. As the level of female literacy continues to increase perceptively in the Middle East, the state's role in integrating women in the economy becomes more central. A relevant corollary issue is the level at which women enter the job market. The small number of women in managerial, executive, or administrative positions in the Middle East attests to the continued difficulty of this process.

Another arena where the state's role is important is at the political and legal level. This level encompasses a large set of issues including those that are concerned with rights of citizenship for women, the impact of civil and criminal codes, and the place of women when the process of political and economic liberalization begins.

An important difference between the Islamic world and the West in regard to citizenship rights is how these rights are formally categorized. In the West, non-gender-based citizenship is the norm, even though in practice, full and complete citizenship rights and equality are not always the case. In the Islamic world, however, the norm is to grant different categories of people different citizenship rights. Hence, women and religious minorities enjoy a different category of citizenship rights than males and Muslims (see Imam, 1996; Joseph, 1996). The problem becomes more serious for gender relations when different citizenship rights are legitimated by religious law and as a matter of faith. The situation is especially applicable to inequalities embedded in the Islamic personal status laws and the criminal code.

Another issue that is not often formally addressed is the impact of economic and political reform and liberalization on the status of women (Walen, 1994). The situation is relevant to the Middle East because even limited women's progress has often taken place under authoritarian but generally secularist regimes. When regimes undertake political reform and move away from rigid authoritarianism, there may then be unforeseen consequences for women. This is especially the case when inclusive politics ushers into the central political arena those "illiberal" forces that are not positively inclined toward preservation or promotion of women's rights. In such situations women lose the state not only as the key protector but also as a partial promoter of their cause (Brand, 1998; Hatem, 1995). Although there is no easy answer or solution to this problem, it is an issue well worth pondering because of its significant consequences, especially in the short run.

A final, less tangible but significant issue concerns the general social acceptance of gender equality and the process of change that leads to it in the Middle East. The acceptance process is slow and time consuming. It is predicated on the socialization experience and the norms and values that are inculcated in individuals as part of the process. The key agents of socialization--family, school, and place of employment--play essential roles. The state's position vis-a-vis these agents is not insignificant, as it can help expedite the process of change through its influence on them.

The Middle East, then, is in a special predicament on the gender issue and women's rights. Excluding the special case of Israel, three countries in the region (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) have had a history of women's movement in the twentieth century. Even in these countries, progress has been at best uneven and not always linear. Although some gains have also been made in other parts of the region, the Middle East continues to lag on issues of gender equality. Unless reversed, the Middle Eastern gender gap will continue to adversely affect the quality of life and politics in the region as well as critical bread and butter issues of equity, efficiency, and economic growth.

The Case of Iran

The place and role of Iranian women in the Islamic Republic is complex and does not allow for simple characterization. The issue of women's status and their proper role has engaged the regime, women, and others in an intense and at times circular debate. It has become in many ways an existential issue with its own particular dynamism (see Afkhami and Friedl, 1994; Moghissi, 1994; Paidar, 1995; Kazemi, 1996; Esfandiari, 1997, Mir-Hosseini, 1999).

From the perspective of reform, the gender issue in the Islamic Republic is an example of at least partial success with a clear possibility for even further progress. It is a situation where a set of harsh and extremist measures on women, introduced and implemented by the revolutionary regime, were progressively modified. The reasons for the reforms are rooted in the activities of women's groups and organizations (especially those whose Islamic credentials could not be easily challenged), the complexities of the Iranian society which does not allow for simple, dichotomous, and excessively hierarchical gender separation in public life, and the exigencies and logistical needs of the Iranian state during the long course of the Iran-Iraq war. Additionally, politicization of women during the revolution and the resultant sense of empowerment, especially among women of lower socioeconomic status, gave women a political voice that they have never relinquished. The combination of these sets of forces eventually forced the state and its reformist contingent to agree to slowly liberalize restrictive laws and regulations.

More specifically, three chronological stages (with some overlaps) characterize the gender reform process in Iran. Phase one began with the establishment of the Islamic Republic after the national plebiscite of 1979 and ended in the early 1980's, soon after the Iranian forces expelled the Iraqis from occupied lands. Phase two lasted for the duration of the war until its termination in 1988. The final and continuing phase began with the death of Ayatollah Khomeini and the important constitutional revisions of 1989--which consolidated both civil and military bureaucracies, strengthened the executive branch, and converted Iran into a presidential system.

These three stages reflect a reform trajectory that moves gradually toward greater openness to women's roles, further inclusion in the system, and partial shifts away from rigid and intolerant positions of the past. The fact that gender reforms have taken place in an authoritarian system with strong ideological postures legitimated with religious dogma, makes the issue particularly poignant. It reaffirms the contention that, given a certain combination of forces, reformist movements are possible in authoritarian systems.

Three general developments affected women's lives in the early years of post-revolutionary Iran: (1) the introduction of a set of norms and ideological pronouncements on gender and the enforcement of veiling and segregation of sexes in public space; (2) the implementation of a number of explicit or implicit restrictions on educational access, choice of occupations, and opportunities in the state bureaucracy; (3) the creation of a new legal system with drastically modified criminal and civil codes that placed women in a highly disadvantaged situation.

All three of these developments have been progressively modified in later chronological phases, especially in phase three. Women activists were particularly instrumental in moderating and modifying the actions of the state. Their opposition to gender restrictions took several different forms, ranging from the use of the media and the press to debate gender issues to active use of reformist organizations to promote women's rights. Some of the state policies and regulations (such as the revival of the institution of temporary marriage) did not take a firm hold. Women also used other forms of explicit and subtle resistance to challenge the system and gain incremental power in the peripheries of the political system. These included the use of various forms of the "weapons of the weak," such as disobedience, refusal, subversion, and dissimulation.

The net result has been some degree of improvement in women's legal, political, economic, and social positions. Although gender equality is not the norm of the Islamic Republic, the women of Iran have taken noticeable strides. If the reform movement in Iran succeeds, especially with the election of President Mohammad Khatami and his greater receptivity to gender issues, then the future of gender equality is by definition more promising.

Conclusion: Gender and Culture

The process of reform in gender relations that has progressed so painstakingly in Iran will most likely have some impact in other parts of the Middle East. The earliest women's movements in the Middle East were spearheaded in Egypt, Turkey, and Iran. It is not surprising that at least some of the most relevant discourse and debate on gender issues are also taking place in these same polities. If gender reform continues in Iran and the most recent improvements in marriage laws in Eygpt expand their scope, and if the Turkish society is able to take the lead in gender roles for the whole of the Middle East, then there is much reason for hope.

The prospects for gender reform in the Middle East are helped and hindered by both structural and cultural changes. As far as structural factors are concerned, demographic transformation particularly stands out. Demographic change in the Middle East is major and multifaceted. It also contains two significant and non-mutually exclusive components that are likely to help gender reform--women and youth. The predominance of youth and the incipient activism of women is a continuing and expanding trend in the Middle East. In 1998, some 40 percent of the population were under the age of 15 (Dervis and Shafik, 1998, p. 507). This percentage is increasing rapidly with some individual countries exhibiting much larger youth ratios. Moreover, this young population is substantially better educated, is politically and socially conscious, has greater access to mass media, is technologically savvy, and has traveled far more than their parents both at home and abroad.

An increasingly more significant element of the Middle Eastern population is its women. The remarkable recent rise in the rate of female literacy has created a better informed and an increasingly more active group. Similar to the male youth, females will also demand entry into the job market and some voice in the system of governance. Whenever these demands are thwarted in a sustained fashion, grievances will emerge. When individual grievances are articulated collectively, and the blame is placed on the regimes, serious potential crises can develop. In such situations, groups with strong cultural presence and claims to legitimacy (particularly the outlawed Islamist organizations) will have a fertile environment to recruit and train dissidents. In these circumstances, it will be difficult for force alone, or any form of what has been called "legal violence," to be effective in the long run as the final arbiter of disputes. Hence, unless political and economic reform is undertaken by the Middle Eastern regimes, pressures from below have the potential of erupting into anomic or organized revolts.

Perhaps the most problematic of the challenges facing the Middle East in the next millennium will be cultural. Although I do not share a cultural determinist view of the Middle East, I do note the presence of important Middle Eastern cultural issues that will influence its domestic, regional, and international politics. The next millennium will see culture used once again as an easy and escapist explanation for Middle Eastern developments by both those inside and out. This will happen even when basic structural trends are far more likely to explain events than particular Islamic or Middle Eastern cultural norms. The situation is made more complicated because many within the Middle East will express developments, policies, and events in cultural terms irrespective of their validity.

There is also a set of worldwide developments with cultural connotations that transcend Middle Eastern boundaries. These developments amount to a form of "cultural implosion." As an observer has remarked, "in recent decades, migrations from rural to urban regions and between countries, as well as business travel, tourism, radio, television, telephones, taxes, the Internet, cassettes, newspapers, and magazines, have shrunk the world stage, bringing cultures into contact and sometimes into conflict" (Cohen, 1998, p. 29).

These trends have made vast and deep imprints in the Middle East and elsewhere. In the Middle East, the impact has been particularly severe on the society's traditional foundations and has challenged many of the deeply rooted values. The regional response to these developments has taken several different forms. One response has been the acceptance of change and a real attempt at acculturation and accommodation of differing cultural patterns. Many Middle Easterners have come to accept, incorporate, and find a workable medium between these new factors and their traditional value systems.

Another response has been defensive and in the form of apologetics for Islam and the Middle East. Some of those in this category have made efforts to insulate themselves from what they consider to be "alien" cultural influences by finding greater solace in the traditions. Yet a third response, which also borrows from the second, has been to organize, resist, and fight what is considered cultural intrusion from the outside. Clearly this does not mean rejection of technological advances. Resistance is not to technology but to cultural, economic, and political domination by the West.

In the next millennium, the politics of the Middle East will attempt to infuse culture into political, economic, and demographic developments. To use Clifford Geertz's phrase, culture will provide the "road map" for making sense of the complicated new realities of life (Geertz, 1964, p. 62).

On the positive side, these efforts can be constructive, as they will help the progressive evolution of Islamic modernism. Since Islam has never been a static civilization, and has had a rich tradition of modernism, a successful fusion of Islam and modernity can remove the cultural bias from the interaction of the Middle East with the West (see Binder, 1988).

Two specific and contentious issues will stand out in the process of Islamic modernism. The first concerns modifications of certain Islamic practices, especially in personal status laws and the criminal code, that are detrimental to gender equality. Success here will go a long way to reduce some of the more pronounced cultural tensions and animosities that have pitted tradition-bound Muslims against the West. Even if these laws are not formally removed from the books, their gradual erosion (and non-adherence to them in practice) will help transform the situation. Clearly, progressive changes in personal status laws in the Middle East will be a critical step toward gender equality.

The second issue involves central themes of governance, people's sovereignty, and democracy. There have already been some important and influential beginnings in this domain by those who find Islam, popular sovereignty, and democracy compatible. Noted Islamic modernist thinkers of the present Middle East--the likes of Hasan Hanafi, Muhammad Shahrour, and Abdolkarim Soroush--have already advanced the idea that it is necessary to reorient critical Islamic themes in light of the developments of modern society. Since these thinkers and their followers remain faithful to the essential precepts of Islam, their potential impact can be significant.

The reverse side is, of course, the progressive politicization of Islam in the hands of Islamists and other radical groups and organizations. The future will not necessarily see a diminution of radical Islamist politics. As in the past, the Islamists will be able to organize the disaffected and the excluded, challenge the established order at home and be an irritant and even a serious threat abroad. Their message may be about jobs, economy, and politics, but it will be expressed in cultural forms. Should such developments take place, it is likely that reform in gender equality will suffer.

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Farhad Kazemi is Professor of Politics and Middle Eastern Studies and Assistant Provost at New York University. He is co-editor (with John Waterbury) of Peasants and Politics in the Modern Middle East (1997) and the author of Poverty and Revolution in Iran (1980), and guest-edited the Fall 1995 and Winter 1996 issues of Iran Nameh on "Civil Society in Iran."