Feminist Readings of Qur’anic and Torah Narratives in the Poetry of Mohja Kahf and Alicia Ostriker

Abstract

This thesis reveals the feminist readings of two narratives from the Torah and the Qur‟an through selected poems from two volumes, The Nakedness of Fathers: Biblical visions and Revisions (1994) by Alicia Ostriker and Hagar Poems (2017) by Mohja Kahf. The aim is to explore how and why Ostriker and Kahf read the Torah and the Qur‟an to reconstruct the female figures of „Hagar‟ and „Sarah‟ from a feminist perspective. The study proposed the following questions: Did the poets succeed in dealing with the narratives of the religious texts from a feminist perspective? Did the stories of Hagar and Sarah told by the two poets differ because of their background and their sources? Were there common elements among the two treatments of the narratives? By comparing and contrasting the selected poems of Ostriker and Kahf with each other as well as with their original religious texts/intertexts and their interpretations, the following conclusions could be highlighted: The aim of feminist readings is to liberate women from a framework in which the normative is male while they are defined as „Other‟, and to develop a more integrated model that embraces women‟s full humanity. Jewish reformers address the “silence” and the “absence” of women and seek to recover the “lost voices” of women in past centuries who served as leaders and who contributed to the development of religion and spirituality. Jewish 165 feminists fill the silence by writing a “new” Torah text with their own lives. Drawing from their experiences as women, feminist Jews provide new narratives to inform and shape an evolving Jewish tradition. Ostriker depends on Midrash to approach Torah narratives from a Jewish feminist perspective, while Kahf uses the Qur‟an and Hadith as her reference to redefine and reinterpret the traditions she has inherited. The narratives of Sarah and Hagar highlight these two figures as matriarchal images in Judaism and Islam. Through her son Isaac Sarah provides the lineage to Judaism whereas Hagar the mother of Ishmael represents that of Islam. As archetypal female figures, both Sarah and Hagar through their matriarchal role represent the strength and courage of the Jewish and Muslim women in religious history. In accordance with the rise of Jewish and Islamic feminism, Ostriker and Kahf look back and draw upon their scriptures and religious heritage. They reexamine the previous interpretations on women trying to create new images with emphasis on woman‟s role in different aspects of life. Accordingly, contemporary issues are highlighted within these images. With its postmodernist emphasis on adaptation and appropriation, feminism emphasizes the religious and the archetypal, and continues to revive the interest in history and myth. 166 Islamic feminism, as a movement, is a way of extending the lines of defying both male traditional readings of the Qur‟an, Hadith, and Sharia on the one hand and the assumptions of Western feminists towards Islam and women on the other. Nevertheless, Islamic feminist studies are intellectual projects that try to reform ideologies based on faulty understanding of religions. Islamic feminists argue for women‟s rights and gender equality which are shaped according to an Islamic paradigm. In the poems addressed in this dissertation, contemporary geopolitical issues are also communicated between the lines. Discrimination against women and the hardships faced by immigrants are two main issues that the poets see in the stories of Hagar and Sarah. Although Ostriker and Kahf write about the same female archetypes, their methods of dealing with their narratives are different. Each poet has her own focus and manner of appropriating the original story. Thereupon, this variety is reflected in the title, themes, events, and images of the poems under study in this thesis. The reinterpretation of Hagar‟s narrative depended on the poets‟ religious sources and on each poet's reception of the narrative. Ostriker's Hagar is an object; she is oppressed and fuming with hate to her oppressors; 167 Kahf's Hagar, on the other hand, is a subject; she is focused on faith and on survival, and is satisfied with her mission and her achievement. The poems are considered a recovery of the female voice that played a significant role in the development of women‟s religious history. The titles of the poems carry direct references to the poets‟ religious texts and inherited culture. Hagar is the speaker or the “I” persona voiced in both texts. In Ostriker‟s poems, Hagar has voice to tell about her suffering while in Kahf‟s Hagar she has both voice and agency. She makes decisions and effective choices about her own life. Ishmael, Hagar‟s son, appears as, a young man who is the source of pride in Ostriker‟s poem. In Kahf‟s poem, Hagar‟s action and her faith are the main sources of her pride; Ishmael is not the male figure who brings pride and satisfaction, but rather the baby dependent on his own mother for survival. As such, Kahf's poem is a celebration of female agency.