1.1 How to study the history of Sufi women

2Muslim women played particularly significant roles at interreligious shrines and in Sufi* orders, in which, at least from the late 19th century onwards, we find remarkable traces of pious and holy women. Nevertheless, it remains an undeniable fact that if the history of Ethiopian women has often been overlooked, studies on Muslim women are even scarcer. Both colonial and Arabic sources have mostly been written through a predominantly masculine gaze that overshadows the agency of women: for example, even though there is an abundance of Arabic literature on Sufism in sub-Saharan Africa, women only figure in it sporadically. Unlike their male counterparts, the life histories of Sufi women are rarely reported in hagiographies; in fact, it is difficult to even find their names, because they are not included in the genealogies of Islamic brotherhoods, and even where they do appear, their status as wives, mothers, or daughters of a shaykh* is often the only form of identification available.

1.2 Some prominent Muslim women in ancient and medieval history

3Finding Muslim women in the long history of Ethiopia is akin to searching in the dark. Although there may be traces of them crystallized in sites of memory, their stories have mainly been handed down through social memory, and only rarely in written literature. Despite this, a few prominent personalities did attain popularity and visibility in the country. A number of pious women became popular icons in Ethiopia in the earliest days of Islam because they were among the first to become Muslims.

4The best-known example of this is a slave, Umm Ayman (Barakah, Rady Allāhu ʿAnhā), the Prophet’s Abyssinian nurse, whom he looked to as his second mother. Umm Ḥabība Bint Abī Sufyān and Umm Salmā Bint Abī Umayya fled with the first Muslims who took part in the migration to Abyssinia, and are considered among the first of the Prophet’s disciples. After the deaths of their husbands, they married the Prophet and returned to Arabia, where they told of the wonders of Aksum. They are viewed among Jabarti communities as role models for Ethiopian women.

5Another personality from a few centuries later who is remembered in the history of Ethiopia is Batī Del Wämbära, daughter of the amīr* of Zäyla, Maḥfuz and wife of imām* Aḥmad ibn Ibrahīm al-Gāzī. Powerful and ready to die for her faith, she succeeded in negotiating the release of Muslims leaders who had been captured by Christians in Harar. She was a symbol of success in the “holy war.”

1.3 Holy women and scholars (1850–1930)

6In Harar, where the role of women in teaching and handing down Islamic learning is well-known and recognised, Muna Abubaker I has shed light on the forgotten figure of a Harari scholar, Ay Amatullāh (1851–1893), the daughter of the qāḍī* of Harar, ʿAbd al-Rahman bin Muḥammad, and Umma Ḫalima. She was a zāhid, a pious woman, who was not interested in worldly goods, and had been given the title of kabīr*, which was normally granted to learned men. Ay Amatullāh studied with the same teacher Ibrahim as her brothers, thereby receiving a high level of education, and she became one of the preeminent scholars of her time. She studied Arabic grammar, the Quran, the Hadith Exegesis, and Islamic law, and became a faqīh*. Her brothers, who were qāḍī, would ask her for advice on religious issues, and to all intents and purposes she was a teacher of men and women alike. It was not common at the time for women to be highly educated. Education within the family network represented a privilege for women. It was only in the rare cases in which a member of their family was a kabīr, as with Ay Amatullāh, that higher education became available to them.

7In Arsi, Sittī Momina (d. 1929) became popular for her spiritual practices and healing powers. Her shrine in Faraqasa became a place of worship for Muslims and Christian visitors from across the region, and was famous for being a place of religious co-existence, where pilgrims would join together to recite ḏikr* that Sittī Momina had composed. Participation in these communal prayers is still considered to help solve all kinds of personal problems today.

1.4 The city of Harar, a depository of women’s legacy in Islam in the Horn of Africa

8While the women mentioned may be among the most popular Sufi women in Northeast Africa, they should not be viewed as exceptional cases; rather, they represent the best-known examples of a broader phenomenon. Other women acquired comparable status in the area, as proved by the female names given to a number of shrines and mosques in Harar, which is one of the most important centres of Islamic learning in the Horn of Africa. Today, their historical memories are preserved in oral literature, or crystallised at sites of memory such as holy shrines and mosques. Of the 356 shrines in Harar, at least 10% are dedicated to women, but there are also several mosques in the city (10 out of 82) that were built by pious women from the elites.

9In the market square, among these material traces we found the Sittī ʿAlawiyya Mosque, or the Italian Mosque, which was built in Sittī ʿAlawiyya’s honour and inaugurated by her in person during her visit in 1937. While colonial archives are particularly reticent regarding her, Sittī ʿAlawiyya was a very important agent of the Islamic renewal of Ethiopia where several mosques where built in her honour during the Italian occupation. If her voice is silenced in the archives, several portraits are nonetheless available in private archives and travel literature.

Figure 5. Silvia Bruzzi, Sitti ‘Alawiyya Mosque in Harar

10Sufi shaykh’s way of dressing is very meaningful. In some cases, it can be considered as a further expression of the unity of believers, the principle of the tawḥīd. The use of both Christian and Islamic symbols expresses the interreligious dimension of Sufi practices that are widespread in Ethiopia.

11In this image Sittī ʿAlawiyya appears in a very symbolic dress. It is a special ḥiğāb similar to that used by Catholic nuns, it brings to mind both Christian and Islamic symbols and values.

Figure 6. Sitti ‘Alawiyya’s portrait (unknown photographer)

2.1 Women are considered guardians of pre-Islamic religious traditions

13Classic works on Islam in Africa, such as Trimingham’s, tended to replicate the discourse in which a section of the male Muslim community historically sought to delegitimise the religious authority of women in Islamic societies. There is a tendency for women to be presented as guardians of pre-Islamic religious traditions, and they are often associated with certain practices that are considered “unorthodox.”

2.2 Gendered responses of the Sufi shaykh facing criticism

14In the contemporary debates of religious orthodoxy whereby Islamic Sufi shrines often face accusations of being highly syncretised while hosting some unorthodox religious rituals and practices, the counter narratives of the Sufis are often framed in a gendered manner. For example, in Northeast Ethiopia, the zār-ḥaḍra* ritual was a target of criticism from legalists. A study conducted in Teru Sina shows informants mentioning the overarching gendering nature of spirituality and the dominant local view of the gendered claim of religious orthodoxy with the striking phrase ya inatihin likak ya abathin atbik (Leave your mother’s way and hold onto to your father’s), which emphasises the gendered nature of religious authenticity. Sufi leaders strategically omit some religious practices which are conspicuous in producing evidence for the Salafi accusations of bidaa* while they redefine others. In their counter narratives, leaders of the shrine narrow the general criticism only as something addressed to the rituals practiced by women even though in the reality the critiques address other habits such as the very practice of the veneration of saints and the existing belief in the intercession of saints.

15The gendering strategy of the Sufi shaykhs is framed in different ways. Firstly, they tend to refer to the culturally constructed gender norms as a justification for “women’s spiritual weakness” characterized by their accommodation of different unorthodox elements compared to their male counterparts who are described as custodians of the authentic religion. The other line of argument is framed in such a way that the discussions of religious authenticity are believed to be related directly to the degree of competence in religious knowledge, which women are believed to lack.