Fatma Aliye’s Invisible Authorship: A Turkish Muslim Woman Writer’s Challenge to Orientalism and Patriarchy

Abstract

This chapter discusses Fatma Aliye’s books—Hayal ve Hakikat (1891, Dream and Reality), Muhadarat (1892, Stories), and Nisvan-ı Islam (1892, Women of Islam) displayed in the Woman’s Building Library during the Columbian Exposition of 1893. The chapter examines what Aliye’s books potentially symbolized and conceptualized to the Fair audience, the organizers of the Woman’s Building, other American women who spoke at the Fair about the Ottoman and/or Muslim women, and to the Muslim audiences. It elaborates on how Aliye’s literary and intellectual activities traversed the paths of modernization and tradition, simultaneously catering to the questions and concerns of both Muslim and Westerner, men and women, and the so-called conservative and progressive audiences, which renders Aliye as a contentious and complicated historical figure. Through a historical discussion, the chapter counters the essentialization of identities and demonstrates the diversity of women’s activism beyond Western feminism. Aliye’s works not only pioneer contemporary Islamic feminist movements that deconstruct patriarchal exegesis and argue for gender equality based on Islamic doctrine but also introduce a criticism of Orientalist portrayals of Muslim women. The chapter looks into the reformist and traditionalist aspects of Aliye’s position which do not necessarily contradict one another but overlap.