Book Review On Part 3: ‎
The Bedrock Of The ‎
Family By Mohammed Bashe H. Hassan

By Rhoda A. Rageh

The part marked as ‘qeybta Sadexaad’ is a lamentation of the broken Somali family and some acknowledgement of the failures of men with little depth of either one. This section should have been the first as a prelude to what is happening to the Somali society. Since the book is meant to take account of the strength of women, it is bit surprising to read this section as the last section of the book. ‘Qeybta Afrad’ is a list of names which I don’t understand the purpose it serves. The information in this section is varied and drifts in and out of the issues on women but the gist of the chapter is as written below:

  ‘Nimco waliba nusqaanteed leh! Ma habbona in indhaha laga laliyo in haweenka wax barta qaarkood dhaliilo la gola yimaaddeen. Waxaa ugu daran in haween badan oo wax bartay is waafijin kari waayeen hawlahaas guud ee ay kaalinta ku yeesheen iyo kuwii iyaga u gaarka ahaa ee dumarnimadoodu ugu horrayso. Aqoontii ay korodhsadeen ayaa ku hubaysay oo gelisey qab iyo isla weyni ay la dheelli kuurkuusadaan, la daalaa dhacaan. Waxaa haweenkaas qaar ka mid ahi ka sala kacaan la noolaanshihii labka iyo la macaamilkiisii sida nin iyo ooridiis. ‘’Wax ma tare tumaalkayaguw, waar mudac iyo mindaad baratee, walaal wax ma noo tumaysaa!’’ Xiniin yar oo macmal ah ayay haweenkaas qaar tuntaan; samaystaan oo la soo baxaan! Waxaa dabadeed dhacda in ay gogosha hurdo ku wada wadaagi kari waayaan iyaga iyo raggii ay u dhaxeen. Cilladdu wa labada qof ee xiniintu shidayso iyo wadaaggooda gogosha oo ledis la’ani ka taranto, dabadeedna kal dhaqaaq ka yimaaddo. Halkaas waxaa ka soo baxa haween oo ubad yaraani haleesho ama sidii hasha geela galoof noqda oo ubad la’aanba ku soo dhaca, taasina waxa ay noqon kartaa khasaare ka weynaan kara faa’iidada ay heleen. . . .’

  The above statement which assumes that marriage guarantees children and undermines Allah’s Will seems to me a condemnation for the women that could not conceive children too? The author’s view of the educated women who made the choice not to marry reminds me of the view of the 18th Century England when educated English women were called ‘The Barrens’ even when some of them had children to distinguish them from other women. There are many who are married and cannot conceive and to put the blame on women is absurd. If the man is not blamed for the choices he makes about marriage why women should be blamed?

  There is a hadith that marriage is half of the Islamic Faith not only for women but for men as well but again there is another Hadith that when a young women went to seek Prophet Muhammed’s advice on whether she was rejecting the Faith if she remains unmarried, the Prophet told her that: marriage is a choice and if she didn’t want to get married, she didn’t have to. In this book, the educated modern women are good as long as they please men in marriage and if not; they are, as the author so vividly describes, galoofo. What is interesting is the author’s analogy of women and camels. If my Somali language is not failing me, the author dismisses the intellectuality of women as unworthy if they fail to please men. So where does his claim that Somali women are strong lies if he denies them to exercise the choices granted to them by Allah? When he is not condemning women, he is patronizing them. On page 223, he says that every woman who becomes astray is man’s fault as if she is incapable of making good or bad choices and that image and thread of women as the property of men runs throughout the book. If Allah treats men and women both equally accountable for their actions, why can’t the author see women’s choices as universal human right? Consciously or subconsciously, he thinks women are good only if they submit to men but otherwise the blame is on their education or men as the destructive force. The question is: What exactly are women in this context? Whether the author truly believes on the strength of women is questionable.

  There are many Somali women in the West who have earned the highest degrees offered in the West and yet are unidentifiable on the streets from other women. There are others who have begun learning the Qur’an in the West and completed the Qur’an with exegesis. One wonders why the ones who become astray would determine how men or the author for that matter view all women.

  This book which is the first book to have made the claims of looking into the strength of Somali women only sees women as the shadow of men. If the reader has time to read the book, he or she can come across endless analogies of likening women to goats or camels and describing them as getting balls/xiniinyo when they are strong. Therefore it is sad for this to be called the first book respecting women. If language and how it is used determines the respect in any communication then this book lacks the fundamental respect of women.

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