By Hadia Mubarak

If Dr. Mona Abul Fadl could have chosen her own burial spot, she would have chosen the very place where her body was put to rest on the 24th day of Ramadan 1429 (Sept. 24, 2008), her intimate friends confide. Under the shade of a majestic oak tree farthest away from the entrance of the Sterling Cemetery, Abul Fadl’s final resting place seemed most appropriate to those who knew her well. Despite her remarkable academic contributions in the fields of political science, women studies, and Islamic studies, Abul Fadl’s deepest passions were reserved for three things, her mother, the umma and the tangible beauty of nature. Any place in which she lived became transformed into a blooming garden as evidenced by her homes in Herndon, VA and Cairo, Egypt.

Born in 1945 to renowned physicians, philanthropists and activists, Zahira Abdin and Mun‘im Abul Fadl in Cairo, Abul Fadl spent most of her childhood between London and Egypt. Well-grounded in both Western and Islamic traditions, Abul Fadl’s cultural hybridism situated her in a unique position to redefine and articulate the terms of a Western-Islamic intellectual encounter. (1)  The immense value of Abul Fadl’s scholarship in bridging Islamic and Western intellectual epistemologies was first recognized by the founder of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), Isma‘il Raji al-Faruqi and his wife, Lois Lamya’ al-Faruqi (God’s mercy be upon them). They proceeded to recruit Abul Fadl to become a IIIT fellow, but their efforts did not materialize until after their assassination.(2)  Abul Fadl’s research in IIIT culminated in a brilliant manuscript which has yet to be published, Where East Meets West: Reviewing an Agenda, and Contrasting Epistemics. It was also through her academic affiliation with IIIT that she met her surviving husband, Taha Jaber Al-Alwani, a well-known scholar of Islamic jurisprudence and former president of the Fiqh Council of North America.

Her ardent love for her mother, a pediatrician and rheumatic heart disease specialist, was exceptional, as her family and friends affirm. After Mona Abul Fadl was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, three years after her mother passed away from the same malignancy, Abul Fadl’s desire to preserve her mother’s legacy and document her remarkable contributions to the medical history of Egypt drove her to resist the cancer for three and a half years, despite the doctors’ prediction that she would only live for six more months. In fact, Abul Fadl’s recent death came within weeks of publishing her mother’s biography titled, Mother of Egyptian Doctors, Zahira Abdin: Tribute and Testimony. As her stepdaughter, Zainab Alwani, recalls, “Her love for her mother was above all other loves. She was ready to give up her life for her. What gave her strength and determination after she was diagnosed with cancer was her mother. She felt like the cancer brought her even closer to her mother, who underwent the same struggle. The project to write on her mother’s life drove her to continue living. It gave her strength to fight the cancer.”

“The last thing she did was proofread and edit the manuscript [Mother of Egyptian Doctors] with the publisher. Two days later, she fell into a coma,” said Saber AlKilany, a close friend to Abul Fadl. In a letter Abul Fadl wrote to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) to include her mother’s biography in their registry, she describes her as follows:
“She would not have liked to consecrate her own memory in itself, as she was always keen to avoid the lime light, shunning all publicity, too busy with the enormity of the charge of serving the poor, the sick, and needy, battling the endless hurdles in the way of improving the lot of a world in turmoil, always doing so without much fuss or flurry, working modestly, quietly, persistently, intelligently, gently, behind the scenes,  one step at a time, tending to a labor of love, with the right balance of gentle determination and focused resolve… In short, she sought neither wealth nor fame: rather, it was quite the reverse, where it was fame and wealth that sought her out…and she used both to serve the constituencies to which she had dedicated her learning and skills.” (3)     

An erudite scholar, Abul Fadl served as a professor of political science in Cairo University for 20 years, a Fulbright scholar at the Old Dominion University and an exchange scholar at the Center for Research and Study of Mediterranean Societies (CRESM) in Aix-en-Provence, France before she joined IIIT. While serving as a fellow with IIIT, she simultaneously taught at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS). She received her doctoral degree in Political Science from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. Her publications include Paradigms in Political Science Revisited, Islam and the Middle East: The Aesthetics of Political Inquiry, Alternative Perspectives: Islam from Within, Where East Meets West: Reviewing an Agenda, and Contrasting Epistemics, and Mother of Egyptian Doctors, Zahira Abdin: Tribute and Testimony.

Abdul Fadl’s work on Muslim Women Studies is among the most significant of her intellectual output. In her vision for Muslim Women Studies, Abul Fadl called for “approaching Muslim Women's Studies as an autonomous and integrated field of inquiry, instead of pursuing it as a 'subfield' within one or the other disciplines or of the area/ culture studies under the dominant academy.”(4)   She critiqued the dominant paradigm as inadequate in rendering justice to Muslim Women Studies because of its theoretical constraints. Primarily, she argued that despite the merits of the dominant paradigm, it “takes its point of departure from the theoretical assumptions in mainstream (Western) academy…[that] evolved out of the European intellectual tradition that reached its apogee in the 18th century model of Enlightenment.”(5) 

While praising the dominant paradigm for its methodological rigor and systematic applications, Abul Fadl insisted on the need for an alternative paradigm in establishing “reliable and relevant” scholarship on women in Islam and the Muslim world. Through her online forum on Muslim women studies (www.muslimwomenstudies.com), she aspired to pave the way for an alternative paradigm and model of scholarship that would be informed by the theoretical underpinnings of a 'tawhidi episteme.’ Her former colleague and IIIT scholar, Jamal Barzinji, noted that Abul Fadl’s ability to integrate the Islamic worldview within the field of women studies was an original contribution to contemporary Islamic thought. She subsequently developed her own graduate course in the field of women studies and Islam, which she taught at Hartford Seminary and later at GSISS.

Abul Fadl is considered to be the first scholar to establish what has been coined an ‘Islamic civilizational paradigm’ and employ it as a methodological approach to the field of political science.(6)  She also coined the term ‘Al-Ummah Al-Qutb, which defines the Ummah in terms of its magnetism, “characterized by its high gravitating ability which results in double outcomes—an internal cohesiveness among its members and a state of openness and attraction of the external.” (7)  “She was a genius,” recalls Alkilany. “She was an encyclopedia, really. She coined new terms like tawhidi episteme or al-umma al-qutb, siragrophia (combina of sira and biography), and arborium. She sat for an hour explaining to me the meaning of the word, arborium. When I still didn’t get it, we decided to call it ‘arisha, which is where intellectuals would gather at the entrance of old, classical Arab homes.”

A woman who shunned clichés and generalizations, Abul Fadl was thorough, nuanced, and precise in all aspects of her life: her scholarship, her spirituality, her love for art and nature, and the way in which she dealt with others. Abul Fadl had an amazing ability to connect with individuals from all walks of life: the gardener in the park, the Ivy-League academic, the secular feminist, the homemaker, and children. Omer Bin ‘Abdullah, the editor of this magazine, recalled an incident 21 years ago in which Abul Fadl found a way to console his two-year-old daughter, Amal. “One day she was running toward me and by chance Dr. Mona happened to be a distance behind her. Amal tripped and fell. Dr. Mona took her up in her arms, and asked her name. And upon hearing it, set about explaining to her in most gentle words, the various ways in which their names had similar meanings. Amal may not have much understood the nuances of the Arabic language but she stopped crying,” Abdullah recalled. Mona, which means “to aspire or raise hopes,” inter-relates with Amal, which means hope in Arabic. 

Mona Abul Fadl’s uniqueness was her ability to combine characteristics that are rare to find in one individual. Despite her vast knowledge (she could tell you something meaningful about nearly everything), she was not eclectic in her knowledge, but possessed a depth of understanding in all her subject matters. Confident, yet humble, meticulous, yet fun-spirited, brilliant, yet aesthetic, Abul Fald left those who met her in awe. She had a keen sense of taste with profound appreciation for the fine details of a thing, be it a certain food, scent, idea, flower, or individual. As Alwani recalls, “she would turn a meal into a lesson in history and culture.”

Her friends described her as “a Sufi in the true meaning of the word.” “She had a special relationship with Allah swt,” says Alkilany. “She was like Rabi‘a Al-‘Adawiya in her khalwa (solitude), as she might sit alone for two to three weeks at a time, working on an introduction to a book or an article.” Her love and appreciation for the botanical realm of creation was just one indication of her deep spirituality. I recall when my husband, her step-grandson, and I once took her for a walk in the fall of 2005, she would stop at every corner of the park to quietly listen to the chirping of the birds or squirrels, observe a certain type of plant that caught her attention or to simply enjoy the scent of a certain flower. As she immersed herself in God’s creation, a deep sense of serenity and contentment would overcome Abul Fadl that cannot be captured in words. It was this sense of serenity and contentment that Abul Fadl imparted to those around her during her life and after her departure.

In fact, despite the brevity of the time we spent together, her character made such an impression upon me to the extent that I feel compelled to bear witness to the strength and beauty of this remarkable woman, may God’s mercy and forgiveness be upon her. She is survived by her husband Taha Jabir Al-Alwani, sisters Azza and Huda Abul Fadl, and stepchildren, Zainab, Ahmad and Roqaya Alwani.

Notes

1. Abul-Fadl’s theory demanded an intellectual encounter that went beyond perceiving the Other in a mode of confrontation or domination/subjugation to one that underscored the importance of exchange, reconciliation and synthesis on equal terms. She called for a meta-disciplinary approach, one that recognized current disciplines in the modern academy as “by-products and promulgators of a historical culture with its epistemologies and methodologies which were distinctive to an integral whole: the Western heritage” and called for their re-evaluation “in light of the Islamic precepts of knowledge” (Abul Fadl, Mona. Where East Meets West: Reviewing an Agenda, and Contrasting Epistemics).  

2. Al-Alwani, Taha Jaber. “Preface,” Where East Meets West: Reviewing an Agenda, and Contrasting Epistemics. June 1991. Published online at http://www.muslimwomenstudies.com/contents_intro.htm 

3. Abul Fadl, Mona. “Zahira Abdin, FRCP.” Muslim Women Studies. December 2006. Accessed 4 October 2008. http://www.muslimwomenstudies.com/zahira_biosynopsis.htm 

4. Abul Fadl, Mona. “A Word about Muslim Women Studies.” Muslim Women Studies. 17 April 2007. Accessed 3 October 2008. http://www.muslimwomenstudies.com/English.htm.

5. Ibid.
 
6. Abdul-Aziz, Islam. “Rahīl al-Daktora Mona Abul Fadl Munatharit ‘Al-Ummah Al-Qutb,” IslamOnline.  24 Sept. 2008 http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=ArticleA_C&cid=1221720299679&pagename=Zone-Arabic-News/NWALayout

7. Abul-Fadl, Mona. Al-Ummah al-Qutb: Nahwa Ta’sīl  Minhājī Limafhoum al-Ummah al-Islamiyah (Herndon, VA, International Institute of Islamic Thought), 22.