Article

Introduction

Political and social crises in Syria in the late Mamluk period helped the Druze fuqahāʾ (jurists), especially those from powerful local families (mainly the Banū Buḥtur) (Salibi 1961, 74–97), to gain visibility and attract disciples (Halawi 2018, 470–500). These jurists formulated new legal teachings to organize their community around strict religious and moral traditions, which, in their view, conformed to the will of Imam Ḥamza b. ʿAlī as expressed in the Rasāʾil al-Ḥikma (hereafter, Ḥikma). Ḥamza, the main founder of the Druze movement from 408/1017–18 to 411/1021, was initially an Ismāʿīlī preacher (dāʿī). He claimed to be the Druze Imam, or rather, the sole Imam. See Ḥikma 2007, Epistle 7, where Ḥamza considers himself the Qāʾim al-zamān, Nātiq, and Hādī. In Epistle 14, he states that “The Imām al-Zamān (Ḥamza) is the slave of the Lord.” In fact, Ḥamza calls himself ʿabd Mawlānā in all his writings (for instance, Ḥikma 2007, Epistle 17: “Mamlūk mawlānā Ḥamza b. ʿAlī”). He reputedly authored the first 35 epistles of the Ḥikma, which lay down the foundations of the Druze faith (Betts 1988, 3–14; Firro 1992, 3–28; Sylvestre de Sacy 1838, 1, CCCCXXX–CCCCXXXVII (based on al-Nuwayrī’s account); Swayd 1998, 17–22). These Druze fiqh books belonged to the genre of legal exegesis: they commented on Epistles 5 and 23 of the Ḥikma and in doing so developed a legal doctrine that differed from other Islamic schools of law (Gilliot 1999, 1–27). Con temporary Druze scholars view these early legal books as theological texts that explain the Druze religious system, which is kept secret (taqiyya: “the care or safeguard of the secrets of the imams’ teaching”; see Amir-Moezzi 1992, 65–66. See also Amir-Moezzi 2011, 143–145; Ansari 2017, 25–26; De Smet 2011, 148–161; Haider 2014, 44–45; Kohlberg 1995, 345–380; Steigerwald 1998, 39–59) from laymen (i.e., non Druze and uninitiated Druze) (Ḥikma 2007, Epistle 9).

The Sharḥayn are the only legal treatises in Druzism. To this day, Druze religious authorities continue to study them and produce oral commentaries (taʿlīqāt) on them. Because this body of legal literature refers to the sacred text of the Ḥikma, it is only accessible to initiated Druze. Besides that, Druze scholars produced an esoteric tradition of Quranic exegesis (Amir-Moezzi 2020, 5–38; Asatryan 2017; Halm 1982; Moosa 1987; Tucker 2008). Druzism is founded on a messianic vision of the world and the imminence of Judgment Day. The Great Imam Ḥamza viewed himself as the Resurrector, who would return on Judgment Day to defeat the forces of evil and restore the truth (Jambet 2005, 230–234; Madelung 1961, 43–135). They accused their con temporaries in other madhāhib of altering the meaning of the Qurʾān and, thus, of unbelief (kufr). Based on the teachings of the Druze Imam in the Ḥikma, Druze jurists radically refuted Muslim law (sharʿ). They also abrogated the seven pillars of Ismāʿīlism: profession of faith, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage, holy war, and loyalty to the Shīʿī imams (Ḥikma, Epistle 7).

The Principle of Gender Equality

The first source of Druze law is the Ḥikma – especially the epistles attributed to Ḥamza – although precise information is lacking about the existence of organ ized Druze communities in Cairo in the early 5th/11th century under the reign of the Fāṭimid caliphate al-Ḥākim (r. 386–411/996–1021) (Ḥikma 2007, Epistles 6, 11 in De Smet, Les Épîtres sacrées des Druzes, 498, 550, Halm 2003, 167–304; Walker 2009). During the formative period of Druzism (al-Dawādārī, Kanz (1961), 6, 259, 334; al-Dhababī, Taʾrīkh (2003), 28, 238–247; Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Taʾrīkh Ḥalab (1951), 1, 248–249; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil (2009), 9, 148–149; al-Anṭākī, Taʾrīkh (1997), 46–61; Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī, Nujūm (1970), 49–75; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm (1933), 4, 176–196; Ibn Ẓāfir, Duwal (1972), 43–63, 409–410; al-Maqrīzī, Ittiʿāẓ (2001), 2, 115–123; al-Nu wayrī, Nihāyat (1992), 28, 197–199; Sibt ibn al-Jawzī, Mir’āt (2005), 157–159) – approximately 408/1017–18 to 434/1042–43 – the teachings of Ḥamza and his successor Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-Muqtanā were shared with a few families, mostly in Syria. These families that converted to Druzism did not constitute an organized community as such. (De Smet 2007, 37–75). On families converted to Druzism in the early 5th/11th century, see Halawi 2012, 40–46. In Epistle 25 of the Ḥikma, the Great Imam (Ḥamza) discussed marriage and divorce between Druze adepts. This epistle deserves special analysis for several reasons. First, it is undated unlike many of Ḥamza’s other writings (Ḥikma, Epistles 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24, 28). Moreover, based on the subject matter, it is unclear that it was written by Ḥamza.

1. In Epistle 15, Imam Ḥamza forbade believers from marrying or having intercourse unless in accordance with the conditions (shurūṭ) named in “the truth and the spiritual law (al-ḥaqīqa wa-l-sharīʿa l-rūḥāniyya),” although he made no reference to Epistle 25. In the introductory paragraph of Epistle 25, the author describes how husbands should treat their wives (Al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim (1963), 2, § 809, 810, 811, and 986).
2. To a certain degree, Epistle 25 is consistent with the general Shīʿī and Fāṭimid vision of the status of women in marriage. In his Daʿāʾim, al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974) stressed the need to obtain the bride’s consent to marriage (Al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim (1963), 2, § 809, 810, 811, and 986). Al-Nuʿmān and his contemporary Imāmī scholars forbade the divorce practice of ṭalāq al-bidʿa, divorce initiated by the husband after pronouncing the repudiation formula three times during the same majlis or session (Coulson 1971, 18; Madelung 1979, 71–74). Imāmī and Ismāʿīlī jurists also stated that inheritance should be equitably divided among men and women of lineal descendent (in distinction to agnatic collaterals in Sunni jurisprudence) (Cilardo 2000, 127–137; Coulson 1971, chap. 8; Madelung 1979, 74–7, Gabbay 2020, 3–8, 102–119). In Epistle 25, the Great Imam made four statements about divorce and briefly mentioned the notion of gender equality in marriage. He did not clearly indicate how a Unitarian (muwaḥḥid) man should behave toward his wife or how the equality between men and women should apply. This left later Druze jurists to develop their own interpretation based on the Imam’s vague wording and inte grate the customary practices of their own social and cultural contexts. Since the Druze rejected the use of raʾy (personal opinion),28 just as Ismāʿīlī and early Imāmī scholars (al-Kirmānī, Maṣābiḥ (2007), 76–77, 113–117; al-Kirmānī, Maṣābiḥ (2008), 93–94, 151–160; al-Nuʿmān, Ikhtilāf (1983), 155–174, 203–228).

Mixed marriages (i.e., the marriage of Druze and non-Druze) were strictly prohibited. This rule was rooted in the Hikma, written during the Druze daʿwa when Druzism was a new religious belief in the Islamic world. At that time, the Druze formed a sectarian social group that had to keep their beliefs secret, especially after the death of al-Ḥākim, as they were persecuted under the reign of Caliph al-Ẓāhir (r. 411–427/1021–1036) and the regency of Sitt al-Mulk (Makarem 1974, 27–30; Swayd 2006, 113). Four centuries later, Druze jurists in the mountainous regions of Syria became preoccupied with the nonobservance of this marriage practice and thus forbid mixed marriages. In fact, early tradition does not have a clear prohibition of marrying outside the Druze faith. However, the Syrian scholars were emphatic that wives should be chosen with a firm foundation in knowledge of the Druze religion. This indicates a heightened concern to control entry into the community and to more directly protect the teachings of the Druze. Therefore, for Ḥikma com mentators and jurists alike, the only way to preserve the Druze community was to marry “someone from inside the community.” In other words, marriage should occur with “a man or a woman who is initiated” and has a strong knowledge of Druze doctrine. Nevertheless, other passages in the Sharḥayn suggest that mixed marriages were not uncommon (Berlin Staatsbibli othek MS Ldbg 211, fol. 71). To manage this practice, Druze jurists established tem porary rules on existing mixed marriages, notably allowing men to invalidate any matrimonial union entered with a non-Druze woman and thus preventing the dis persal of believers. Since that time, the consensus (ijmāʿ) of Druze scholars has forbidden mixed marriages. This remains one of the most distinctive feature of contemporary Druze family law when compared to other modern Islamic family laws.

A Druze believer who marries a non-Druze is inevitably excluded from the community, as are his/her children. It should be stressed that there is theoretically no means for an individual, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jew, to become a Druze. In other words, conversion to Druzism is forbidden, as believers can only be born into the faith (see Anderson 1952, 1–9, 83–94; Azzi 1992, 229; Layish 1982, 108–109).

In the case of married women, they must ask for a divorce if their husbands’ belief wanes. This rule applies to wives who hold a higher spiritual rank than their husbands. By assuming the right of women to attain a high spiritual rank, Druze scholars followed earlier Ismāʿīlī scholars like al-Nuʿmān and al-Muʾayyad fī l-Dīn al-Shirāzī (d. 470/1078); in his Majālis, the latter stated that men’s superi ority over women (as stated in Q 4:34) refers to the superiority of a mufīd (posses sor of knowledge) over a mustafīd (seeker of knowledge) (Al-Shirāzī, Majālis (1994), 267–268. See also Bauer 2012, 39–40). Indeed, Druze jurists consid ered that gender hierarchy and gender equality were not mutually exclusive. Thus, they allowed husbands to beat their wives and affirmed the inferiority of the latter, but at the same time they made the strict observation of gender fairness and equality mandatory in all aspects of marital life (Dana 2003, 24–25; Tarabey 2013, 47–48; Azzi 1992, 230–231).

In Druze cosmology, scholars use the Ismāʿīlī gendered lexicon55 to distin guish male teachers from female students, although the terms are interchangea ble once, on earth, the (female) mustafīd acquires sufficient knowledge to become a (male) mufīd (Ḥikma, Epistle 13). Druze metaphysics potentially poses the framework for a non gendered cosmology, the same celestial entity performing both male and female functions. And yet, imparting wisdom can only be a male function. Likewise, in the physical realm, women/wives should obey men/husbands and seek knowl edge from them. Druzism thus maintains a hierarchy of physical genders. When a woman attains a high rank in knowledge, she can teach less intelligent women but not men – this is similarly observed in al-Nuʿmān’s doctrine of prayer (Calderini 2018, 94–117).

Free Consent, Sexuality, and Zinā

Druze jurists opposed their legal doctrine (sharʿ al-tawḥīd) to all other Islamic legal doctrines (al-sharāʾiʿ al-nāmūsiyya), including the ẓāhir or substantive laws of Sunni madhāhib as well as the Shīʿī taʾwīl (interpretation of ẓāhir laws). In the Ḥikma, Imam Ḥamza called on believers to reject substantive rules, since the nāsūt (God’s image) al-Ḥākim was on earth to unveil God’s will (Ḥikma, Epistles 10, 13, 14). He viewed Islamic and other religious laws as manifestations of divine punishment, which were avoided by people who acknowledged the divinity (ilāhiyyat) of al-Ḥākim, the One (al-wāḥid), during the daʿwa.73 Yet how could Druze jurists living in rural Syria in the 9th/15th century justify their rejection of sharāʾiʿ al-nāmūsiyya if the nāsūt was no longer on earth? Indeed, Druze jurists could no longer condemn these laws for the same reasons as the Great Imam in the Ḥikma. Instead, they considered contemporary and past Muslim jurists to be unbelievers (kuffār), because they misunderstood the Qurʾān and failed to acknowledge the sacred teachings of the Ḥikma. In accordance with this view, the Sharḥayn’s authors abrogated all rules from Islamic schools of law, believing them to be irreligious. Both Sunni and Shīʿī fiqh were seen to be extremely unjust toward women and thus conducive to gender inequality. For Druze jurists, a man must enter marriage with the woman’s full consent (rāḍiya, musallima) and show no violence (qahr) or constraint (ghaṣība) toward her, otherwise their marriage is deemed illegal. In the case of marital zinā, Druze law stated that only the husband was legally recognized as the adulterer (zānī). A woman was only considered an adulteress if she consented to sex with her husband while pregnant or nursing.

1. A Legal Paradigm: “Women Are Inherently Deficient”

Even though addressing only male audiences, Druze jurists regulated both men’s and women’s duties within marriage. They therefore attached great importance to the submission of women to men as well as to the attitude of the latter toward their wives. A woman is expected to submit to her husband, obey him, and conform to his bidding, while he should discipline and educate her, and take the lead in sexual intercourse and everyday life: “The man must have intercourse with his wife for [the sole purpose of having] a child (Munich Staatsbibliothek MS Ar. 232, fol. 24r). He must command [her] and forbid [her to do] what is inappropriate. He must not let her lead him astray in any respect; thus, he dominates her (malaka-hā) […]. (Munich Staatsbibliothek MS Ar. 232, fol. 24r). Druze scholars explic itly regulated the behavior and role of men in marriage partly in response to moral threats posed by women: they warned them against letting women interfere in matters that are exclusively men’s affairs, such as knowledge transmission and intercourse in marriage. The male authors of the Sharḥayn held a deeply patriarchal vision of society (Ali 2006, xviii, 56–57, 61).

Premodern Druze jurists developed rules that enforced sexual equality but simultaneously conformed to their own sense of sexual hierarchy. For them, this hierarchy was the natural norm that ensured marital harmony. In the 9th/15th century, all Druze scholars were men who sought to regulate women’s status and attitudes in accordance with local social norms and culture. Gender equality – as conceived nowadays – was not an issue in the Islamicate and Persianate (Hodgson 1974, 2: 57:5) milieu at that time (Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics & Islam, 148–150; Ali 2010, 190; Ayubi 2019). Druze jurists expressed a vision of spousal equality based on complemen tarity, which obviously refers to the complementary of spheres of social activ ity. Thus, given the fact that men acted in their own sphere (especially religious knowledge), all speaking of the submission of women to men obviously implied submission in the men’s sphere. The harmony of the couple was achieved when, on the one hand, the wife submitted to her husband, and on the other, he was kind and fair toward her (Berlin Staatsbibliothek MS Ldbg 211, fol. 58v).

Moreover, Druze law forbade any violent conduct toward women: “He must not be violent (yajūr) towards her” (Excerpt [5]). A husband could nevertheless be severe and strict with his wife as long as he was not violent with her. Among Druze jurists, the difference between severity and violence was extremely tenuous, as may be seen in respect to the disciplining of wives (Berlin Staatsbibliothek MS Ldbg 211, fol. 61r). This passage recalls Q 4:34: “Men are in authority (qawwāmūn) (Chaudhry 2013, 41–42) over women […]. If you fear disobedience from your wives, admonish them (ʿiẓū-hunna; waʿẓ), then abandon them in bed (ihjurū-hunna; hajr), then hit them (iḍribū-hunna; ḍarb).” According to Kecia Ali, the interpretation of this “difficult verse” “illustrates both the presence of androcentrism and misogyny in some aspects of the Muslim tradition as well as possibilities for a more egalitarian reading of scripture” (Ali 2006, 117; Bauer 2006, 134–135).

For the Druze, “shunning wives” meant “avoiding them,” as explained by Abū Bakr al-Ḥadād (d. 800/1387) (Bauer 2015, 213–214), not only “in bed” but rather a “general aban donment,” including the refusal to engage in conversation (Chaudhry 2013, 74–75). As Ibn al-ʿArabī argued, whenever conjugal tensions exist, physical closeness is not even an issue (Bauer 2015, 210–211). In Druze law, the expression “shunning wives” did not specifically refer to sexual intercourse for several reasons. First, the text does not mention “in beds.” Second, sexual intercourse is only permitted for the purpose of procrea tion. And lastly, a wife’s consent is mandatory for all sexual activities, otherwise the husband is accused of the crime of zinā.

The permissibility of wife beating is nonetheless problematic in Druze fiqh since it promotes physical violence toward women (Wadud 2006, 203). In her study of domestic violence in Sunni law, Chaudhry confirms that wife beating lies at the heart of Muslims’ interpretations of Q 4:34 (Bauer 2015, 211, n. 14), which explains why jurists from the four Sunni madhāhib regulate its procedures and limitations. The Shāfiʿī position on wife beating, mainly based on al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277), a great legal authority in Mamluk Syria (Halim 2015), is most relevant to our case. The Shāfiʿīs state that wife beating is permissible and that a woman who has behaved sin fully can obtain her husband’s forgiveness (Chaudhry 2013, 90–91; Chaudhry 2013, 116; Ali 2006b, 143–155). Like Shāfiʿīs, the authors of the Sharḥayn established the permissibility of wife beating, just as they followed other madhāhib on other matters (Wissam H. Halawi 2016, 108; Chaudhry 2013, 110, 113–114), while they also emphasized the concept of forgiveness in marriage. For this reason, my translation of the verb ḍaraba in Excerpt [6] is preceded by “can” instead of “must,” since the text uses the indica tive mode (yaḍribu-hā) rather than the imperative (iḍrib-hā). Druze jurists, however, did not specify the circumstances in which wife beating was permissible, only stating that it should be a last resort and not inflict injury (ghayr mubarriḥ). Husbands should not break bones or cause bleeding (Chaudhry 2013, 86, n. 107, 111–112 (Mālikis), 121 (Shāfiʿīs)) slapping is also forbidden. On the requirement of not hitting women’s faces in mainstream Islamic exegesis, see Chaudhry 2013, 85, n. 105. For most Muslim jurists such as the Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalis, face slap ping should be avoided (Chaudhry 2013, 121, 128), whereas Druze jurists forbid it outright (see Excerpt [6]).