The Women – Not the ‘Harem’ – of Kuwait
Al Qabas, Kuwait, February 23
Language, any language, is a deep sea of meanings, gestures, and interpretations. Therefore, ideological and civil history is replete with intellectual differences that sometimes originate in the interpretation of a single word. Last week, a notable political Islam commentator published a sarcastic article titled “Kuwait’s Harem,” referring to the women of Kuwait. Before delving into the details of that hurtful article, we must first pause and reflect on the interpretation of the term “harem.” Across virtually all Arabic dialects, the word “harem” is used with the intent of belittling the social status of women. Specifically within Gulf states, the term has long been dropped from people’s vocabulary. Indeed, today there is no harem council, no harem door, and no harem entrance. All these concepts have become obsolete and out of touch with the progress that women have made to date. Therefore, those reading this author’s article cannot help but sense, whether explicitly or between the lines, the sense of irony and mockery he used to describe Kuwaiti women by referring to them as the “Harem of Kuwait.” In terms of content, the article was rife with contradictions and fallacies that the political Islam movement is famous for. Indeed, the rights achieved by Kuwaiti women, which were mentioned in the article, wouldn’t have been achieved if women had remained “inviolable” according to the perspective of political Islam. Allow me to return to the language, its sources, and its interpretations in order to find accounts about the history of the use of the word “harem” instead of a “woman.” One of the accounts says that the Arab region did not know the word “harem” until late in the 14th century and that this word didn’t spread among the Arabs except after the first centuries in which dictionaries of the Arabic language were developed. The spread of the word increased with the sultans of the Ottoman Turks allocating a special place for women and concubines known as the haremlik. Since we have certainly passed the Ottoman era, it seems only fitting that the word “harem” would disappear from everyday jargon once and for all. After all, when a writer writes about the virtuous women of Kuwait using the term “harem,” he isn’t using it to honor or celebrate Kuwaiti women, but to provoke and insult them and their remarkable achievements. –Suad Fahad Al-Mojil (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)
