Chiara Maritato
Postdoctoral research fellow
Department of Cultures, Politics and Society
University of Turin
SISP Conference, University of Milan, September 15-17, 2016
Female religious participation in Istanbul. Listening to the vaizeler's sermons in Diyanet's mosques
The article is the result of one-year fieldwork in Istanbul different neighbourhoods attending the sermons and religious sessions of female preachers (vaizeler) employed by the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). Starting from the early 2000s, the latter, a bureaucratic agency considered one of the emblems of Turkish secularism (laiklik), has increased the number and competences of the vaizeler working all over the country. Investigating the forms and meaning of this policy, this contribution casts light on the vaizeler’s everyday engagement providing women with official religion knowledge and moral guidance. In this sense, the observations of the vaizeler’s sessions and the dialogues originating within such a female-only spaces would enhance the debate on the heterogeneous female religious participation in contemporary Turkey. Moreover, it would contribute in questioning how piety as a set of practices is publicly performed through daily exercises.
***Draft paper!
Introduction:
At 10am, the Abdullah Ağa mosque in Istanbul’s Kısıklı district is already crowded. It is a hot day in July, the month of Ramadan has just started, and about one hundred women gather in the mosque's main hall, the antechamber, and the upper floor. Fatma, the vaize[1] of Üsküdar, enters, greets the whole group, and sits down in front of the women, near the mihrab[2]. She leads a short prayer while fixing her book rest, then she starts reading the Qur'an; today, it is the 5th Sura, “Al-Ma'idah” (The Table). All the women open their own Arabic copies full of underlines and marginal notes; the young girls turn on their tablets and follow the reading. Once finished, Fatma starts the sermon:
“[...] Some Muslims look at Islam as tourists do in Sultanahmet[3]! This is not a true faith. Islam asks us to be attached (takılmak) to religion. [...] One day, I was going to the Fenerbahçe mosque and someone asked me: 'for 100 dollars per month will you behave in the same way you do?' You know, my friends, we are neither masochists nor illiterates: we read, we study, we work, we know how to inform ourselves, and we also have social life! That's what I answered. [...] There are different ways to be Muslim, every religion has its own books and its own rules that must be known and followed. We perform the ibadet [worship, devotion].”[4]
Women who weekly attend the preachers’ seminars share the same motivation: to be attached to religion in their everyday. This purpose can be summarised by the word ibadet. The verb ibadet etmek (to pray; worship) recurs in almost all the vaizeler's sermons and indicates in the first instance the act to pray, one of the five pillars of Islam.[5] However, the meaning is far larger[6] embracing the totality of Islamic practices, that is: to live as serfs while showing love, respects, and loyalty to God in feelings, thoughts, and behaviours during all life. A Muslim who follows ibadet is thus a devout participant, actively engaged in pious behaviour. This aspect is crucial and relates to another important aspect: the claim for an active and “aware” participation.
In line with these considerations, this papermoves from the activities organised by the vaizeler to educate women on religious knowledge. However, to fully assess the forms and meanings of the preachers sessions and, in particular, the religious lessons, seminars, and sermons, it is necessary to pay attention to the institution that employs them, the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet Işleri Başkanlığı, known as the Diyanet). The latter is a state bureaucracy established in 1924 as an administrative office under the control of Prime Minister. Charged with the management of religion in Turkey it is often considered one of the emblems of Turkish secularism, laiklik[7]as an attempt to bureaucratize and control the expression of religion in public sphere. Such an assertive secularism evolved from the 1950s and, in particular, 1960s when the Diyanet[8] developed engaged in projects aimed at fostering morality among society. As İştar Gözaydınnotes, by the 1965 Act no. 633 the duties of Diyanet were redefined including: “to carry out affairs related to the beliefs, prayers, and moral foundations of Islam, to enlighten society about religion and to manage places of prayer.”(Gözaydın 2014:6)Assessing the current transformation of the religious services provided by the Diyanet and the increase in the personnel (also female) employed, this previous framework should thus be taken into account.
Starting from the early 2000s, the Presidency of Religious Affairs opened new position for women working as preachers (vaizeler), Qur’an teachers and vice-Muftis. As for the female preachers, while in 2003 their number was 76, the following year, 182 preachers were employed by the Diyanet; in 2010 their number reached 403[9], in 2013, 453. The following year, their number was 727.[10]The feminisation of this religious official institution traditionally male-dominated is worth considering for the multiple issues it challenges. One above all: religious female engagement from the sessions held in private houses, has come to the foreground gaining the mosque’s public realm.This aspect calls into question Turkish state’s monopoly over female religious officials. Moreover, Diyanet’s great amount of effort put into religious and moral support for women and families gained my interest[11]. I investigated the extent and how the increase in state-sponsored religious educationis combined with the call for an individual moral conduct. Relating it to the peculiarity of Turkish secularism as a state’s monopoly over religious affairs, this work investigateswhat does the vaizeler’s daily engagement in transmitting religious knowledge and practices reveal about the evolution of Turkish female religious engagement?
By increasing the number of state- sponsored preachers aimed at enlightening women on “true” religion, this Diyanet’s policy might symbolise a state’s attempt to regulate over female religiosity, an environment largely dominated by the activities of “unofficial” religious communities.
In Turkey, a traditional and well-rooted predicationis historically carried out by congregational female preachers (ablalar) belonging to religious communities (Raudvere 1998). The vaizeler inserts thus in this market (Blasi 2009:263-272) of female religiosity resulting either concurrent to those held by the ablalar or rather engaged in providing similar services through a state’s “official” label. I argue that the vaizeler epitomize a state’s attention to morality which is daily carried out via both state’s agencies as the Diyanet and ad hoc institutions such as the Diyanet’s “Offices for Family” or the Call-Centre for Fatwa (Maritato 2015).Attending vaizeler’s sessions provides thus a cross section of how this morality is daily transmitted and performed.As for the jaleseh meetings in Iran described by Fariba Adelkhah, I claim that these are collective places of religious activity (lieux collectifs d'activité religieuse) directed by women where both interaction and discussion among members are welcomed. (Adelkhah 1991:136-137)
In the last decades, the literature of Muslim women gathering together in the shadow of the mosques or in private places is flourishing. Approaching the case of Morocco, Connie Christiansen considers the religious zeal of women involved in activities like Qur'an lectures, Islamic celebrations, and prayers sessions organised in addition to the obligatory five per day as prescribed in Islam. These young women are attentive to their own style of conduct and are engaged in activities in society like charity, teaching, and counselling. (Christiansen 2003:153-160). Similar dynamics of female religious engagement are assessed by Lara Deeb in her research on Shi'a women in Lebanon; Deeb considers how new forms of piety emerged from a consideration of modernity as both a material and spiritual progress. Performing piety as a public act in their everyday implies a “conscious and conscientious commitment.” (Deeb 2006:5). In line with these women’s modern piety, Hilary Kalmback points out the transformation of Islamic authority and its effects on female participation in preaching sessions in Syria. According to the author, the religious education provided to women attending dhikr ceremonies in Damascus should be related to modern Islamic activism and to highly consider religious education as a practice toward a pious conduct. (Kalmbach 2008:38-44)Moreover, it should be mentioned that, in Turkey, besides the activities of religious groups and communities, a myriad of female religious circles and communities meets outside of established religious organisations. Kim Shively’s ethnographic research on women independently meeting for Qur'an readings in Sincan in the aftermath of the 1997 “post modern” coup(Shively 2008:683-711) masterly reports on this. Therefore, including the vaize’s institution in this varying panorama requires to take into account how itcombines both these traditions: a piety becoming more and more modern and public, and a state’s attempt to frame and regulate it.
With the purpose of describing, and, as much as possible, understanding, the religious environment in which the vaizeler's activities are performed, I focused on the vaizeler’s sessions. In this sense, an inductive perspective resulted as the more appropriate: the everyday is here assessed as an analytical category co-constituted with (Islamic) morality (Deeb 2006). I observedfor one year the preachers’ daily engagement in female sessions in Istanbul different neighbourhoods. In so doing, I opted for political ethnography (Auyero 2006; Schatz 2013; Baiocchi and Connor 2008; Bayard de Volo and Schatz 2004) as the main methodology. Critical policy ethnography(Dubois 2009) helped me in structuring the ethnographic observations within the frame of a policy: the feminisation of a state agency, the Diyanet. The bulk of my research was conducted from February 2013 to February 2014 with several shorter visits, such as one month from October to November 2014 and three weeks in September 2015. From the end of March 2013, my observations were organised as follows: I attended 57 vaizeler's sessions, of which 40 were sermons, 15 were religious courses (Qur’an exegesis and Sunna), and 2 were religious seminars on specific topics. As for the setting of the 57 sessions: 20 were in the Beşiktaş Municipality; 16 in the Üsküdar Municipality; 12 in the Bahçelievler Municipality; 4 in the Kadıköy Municipality; 2 in the Güngören Municipality; 1 in the Başakşehir Municipality; 1 in the Beyoğlu Municipality, and 1 in the Fatih Municipality. This contribution partially refers to this fieldwork constituting the ethnographic observations carried out for my PhD dissertation. In reporting about the activities performed by the Diyanet’s preachers, the paper explores the concept of ibadet as an invitation to follow Islamic principles while being fully committed in religious education and ritual practices. In this sense, the first section is devoted to explore the vaizeler’s call to be conscious and aware believers, attending religious seminars; in the second section, the attention is paid to the preachers’ invitation to perform religious rituals and embody piety in the everyday.
I. To Consciously Believe: Religious Knowledge in the Vaizeler’s Seminars
Assessing Islamist women's engagement in Iran, Fariba Adelkhah (1991:109)claimsthat the believer must know the true elements of religion, understand, and accept them since they are rational. This aspect is crucial and in the case of the sessions organised by the Diyanet’s preachers could be summarised by a double imperative: to pray and to know. I would argue that the two acts are related and complementary: what is required is to be a “conscious” believer. However, to know the basic principles of religion requires application and attendance to religious courses; Fatma,the vaize of Üsküdar, when preaching both to young students and womencontinuously refers to the importance of studying religious sources:
“When I work at the fatwa service [Halo fetva, fetva nöbeti] a lot of people call. Many of them call because they would like to pray, but they do not know how to do it; they would like to read the Qur'an, but they do not know how to, therefore they start panicking. Let's imagine, you would like to have a lot of guests this evening inviting them for the iftar at your places, but you do not even know how to cook a soup or some rice! Religious courses are useful for everyone, to know the basis of our religion [...] it is not necessary to attend academic lessons, but the basic principles.”[12]
According to the preacher, to consciously know is required as much as to believe:
“Atheists people are not the problem. In the world they are few. Those who have an incomplete knowledge of God, who are many, are a problem.”[13]
To be an aware believer is indeed a leitmotiv recurring in many of the vaizeler’s sessions and it should be dated back to the 1980s and the 1990s. The literature (Eligür 2010;Saktanber 2006:21-31; Sundal 2005:109–30; White 2002:191–217; Arat 1999) dealing with women's engagement in Turkish Islamic movements clearly makes the distinction of the aware believer from a traditional, unaware one (Burgat 2002: 213-217) who routinely follows the Islamic rules. Likewise, Nilüfer Göle describes this engagement as directed toward a knowledge of religious sources beyond superficial and traditional beliefs (Göle 1993:98-99).
In many of the sessions I attended, the vaizeler referred to the necessity of being a conscious believer. An aware believer is someone who decides to practice Islam and is able to understand religion's complexities. In a sermon she gives to about 20 women of all ages, Nimet, the vaize of Güngören, states:
“We should live as Muslims, but being aware of it. Not because our parents are Muslims, our neighbours are Muslims and so on... We must understand what does it mean, ask ourselves: why? What do these rules mean? Once we understood the meaning, we could better decide how to believe. [...] A good Muslim is an educated man. And this is true for women too! For years women were prevented for accessing mosques and they had no possibility to understand the religious texts and commands.”[14]
I argue that this point is worth considering and necessitates a closer examination. While attending the seminars of the Diyanet's preachers, one of the first elements that gained my attention was women's ability to read the Qur'an in Arabic: their editions were full of marginal notes indicating an on-going study. While taking notes on the vaize's explanations in Turkish, they were thus engaged in self-reflection about the text. In other words, as Sadaf Ahmad notices in the case of Pakistani female religious sessions, the preachers provide women with “a particular 'schemata of interpretation', a frame through which they can judge their behaviour and compare it to the moral principles provided by the Qur'an and the Sunna.”(Ahmad 2009:67)Moreover, women attending the vaizeler's sermons are often involved in other religious activities organised by the Diyanet during the week such as Qur'an courses[15], exegesis, and seminars.
The latter are the core of the vaizeler’s religious engagement. Consisting of a two-hours lesson concerning Qur'an exegesis (tefsir) and/or the reading of the Prophet Mohammad's deeds and sayings (hadis) constituting the Islamic tradition, Sunna, these sessions are generally organised as courses, either in mosques or in the Qur'an course classrooms. At the beginning of theprogramme (generally lasting two-three months), the preacher indicates reference books for the Sunna, as well as further readings. The preachers are free to select the texts within a list of those approved by the Diyanet. These religious seminars are generally attended by an average of 15-20 women; however, in case of ad hoc topics (motherhood, marriage, pilgrimage) or seminars organised to mark the occasion of the Holy Birth Celebration for the birth of the Prophet Mohammed (Kutlu Doğum), participants vary from 40-80 women. The sessions are places of active participation: women ask for clarifications and examples, they reply to the vaizeler's questions and take attentively notes in their handbooks. Preachers provide both basic religious knowledge and more specific and in-depth topics, often employing white-boards, slides and photocopies. In one of her seminars attended by young girls during the school year at the Üsküdar “Youth Centre”, the vaize, Fatma, started by presenting the meaning and the importance of inanç, ibadet and ahlak (belief, worship and morality) as the basic pillars of Islam.[16] By contrast, in the mosque of Suadiye, the vaize, Ayşenur, addresses about 40 women every week in academic-style seminars: slides for presentation, and books on the desk to provide references. In one lesson, she presented the “99 names of God”, with an etymological definition of many of them, writing the names on the board and commenting on the Arabic terms.[17] In a lesson held in Beşiktaş, the preacher Tuğba dedicated the two-hours seminars to the different kinds of prayer (namaz), explained how and when they should be performed. By distributing photocopies to women, she presented a list of the different typologies of prayers, stressing those required by religion and those that are not.
Despite their belonging to different socio-economic milieu and their dissimilar cultural and social background, women participating in vaizeler's sessions are answering a similar religious call. The call materialises in a common behaviour that is not to distance from the Islamic principles, while engaging in society at large. Women attending are, in fact, motivated by a quest for religious knowledge which, as for the case of the Iranian Islamist women studied by Adelkhah(1991:124), distinguishes them from those believers practising Islam mechanically. Hence, the Qur'an readings are perceived as not enough if not associated with the exegesis and the comprehension of the texts. Speaking at the microphone or behind a desk, the vaizeler act as teachers providing religious knowledge, giving homework, or preparing a final tests to check the knowledge acquired. Considering the number of lessons and programmes organised, women met there almost every day, so that the groups acquire intimacy and trust for both the preacher and the fellows.