"A Dayooth is not a Real Man"
“Moroccan brothers police their sisters... One of my brothers smacked me in the face when he thought I was with a man… When I went to Turkey, my father said ‘You travel with my face’ [i.e. honour]” - Jamila (Rabat, Morroco).
“Those are my neighbours”, Fatima remarked of two guys we had just passed in Fes. “Really? How come you didn’t greet them?”. “That would be disrespectful to my brothers”.
“My brothers always police their sisters, asking where they’re going, who they’re speaking to. Aschool, my brother interrupted me talking to a boy” - Layla (Rabat).
“Dayooth is very important in Uzbekistan. A man will be shamed if he doesn’t have proper protective jealousy over his wife, his mother, his sister, his daughter” - Oybek (from Tashkent).
“I haven't heard this word 5 years ago, dear. Now everyone whose wife works, has income, free in public, talks to other men or wears whatever she wants, people will use ‘dayooth’ towards her husband or brother or dada.. Now people would love to shame another person just for being softer and easier with his women” - Gulnora (Tashkent).
I undertook a month of qualitative research in Morocco last year - interviewing people in six cities and hiking across the Atlas mountains to visit Amazigh villages. Soon, I’m heading to Uzbekistan. In both countries, men’s status rests on their women’s namus (modesty, chastity and virtue). Impropriety is humiliating. To preserve ‘ghayrah’ (honour), some families maintain tight surveillance. Women themselves may choose to conform - personally endorsing these ideals or thinking it necessary for respectability.
This Substack explores:
The origins of dayooth
Cultural evolution: conquests, religious authoritarianism and assimilation
20th Century secularisation and religious revival
Social media shaming
What are the origins of ‘dayooth’?
The first written mentions of ‘dayooth’ come from several Hadiths (sayings and actions of Prophet Mohammed). It is stated that a ‘dayooth’ who lacks proper protective jealousy of his womenfolk will not enter ‘Jannah’ (heaven).
Namus, ghayrah and dayooth are all Arabic terms.
Let me add 3 caveats:
The Hadiths do not specify what constitutes a ‘dayooth’: it is left open to interpretation.
The Quran has no mention of ‘dayooth’ or protective jealousy. Surah An-Nur (Chapter 24), however, does have some verses, on modesty.
Arabs were not the first to regard male honour as contingent on female seclusion. Ancient Greek and Assyrian women also veiled.
Even if honour culture was not unique to the Arabian Peninsula, it then spread through invasions, cultural assimilation, and religious authoritarianism.
Conquests, Cultural Assimilation and Religious Authoritarianism
After Islamic armies conquered territories across the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, communities gradually converted to Islam. They were attracted by the ideals of equality, tax exemptions and opportunities for trade. Conquered peoples also adopted Arabic language and customs like cousin marriage.
Where Islam spread via military conquest, political authority was consolidated under a dictator (caliph), with elite slave soldiers (mamluks), who were compensated with non-hereditary land grants (iqta). Absolutist rule was then legitimised by clerics (ulema). Religious authoritarianism amplified cultural assimilation.
When Baghdad was the seat of the Sunni Muslim empire, Persian theologians managed state institutions of learning. Transmitting Mesopotamian and Zoroastrian influences to Islam, these clerics were extremely puritanical. Baghdad’s enormous wealth enabled its great influence on Islamic ethics.
These clerics conceived of men as intellectually superior and rightful patriarchs who achieved ethical perfection by cloistering their wives. They repeatedly barred women from communal prayers in the mosque. After Ghazali, Tusi and Davani, Islam became much more patriarchal.
Ghazali not only sanctified patriarchy, but also religious persecution. As Timur Kuran explains his broader discussion of apostasy:
‘Ghazali helped to establish the practice of treating heterodox Muslims as apostates who deserve execution. He urged the killing of independent philosophers as well as Ismaili Shiis, insisting that rulers and their military had a duty to destroy heretics… The fatwas of leading Islamic interpreters, such as Ghazali… were collected in volumes for use by later interpreters… statesmen and judges’.
Religious authoritarianism and persecution of dissent all reinforced patriarchal ideals. Moreover, even if people in the Middle East and North Africa were dissatisfied, where could they go? Most ruled regions back onto the desert. Exit options were terrible.
Ibn Toumert travelled to Baghdad and learnt from Al-Ghazali. Returning to Morocco, he agitated for puritanical reform, led attacks on wine shops and championed gender segregation. These ideas were resisted by Moroccan clerics. Ibn Toumert assaulted the emir’s sister in the streets of Fez because she was unveiled. The ulama of Fez expelled him from the city. He headed to Marrakesh, where he accused them of moral laxity. The Almoravid emir had him flogged and expelled.
Ibn Toumert found supporters (many of whom were educated, i.e. spoke Arabic and accustomed to Arabic culture). They formed a religious mission of purification, ‘the Almohad rebellion’. In 1147, this Almohad movement overthrew the ruling Almoravid dynasty. They rejected the Islamic principle that non-Muslims can practise their own religion but pay a tax (‘jizya’). Urban Moroccans were increasingly forced to convert to Islam. Many Jews fled.
Dayooth, ghayrah and namus thus spread through conquests, cultural entrepreneurship, empire, religious authoritarianism and assimilation.
20th Century Secularisation and Religious Revival
From the late 19th century, feminists fought back. Publishing journals, women debunked men’s narratives, decried their ‘imprisonment’ and highlighted scriptural support for equality. By the 1970s, the urban middle class in Baghdad, Cairo, Kabul and Tehran had become more secular and cosmopolitan. Women increasingly unveiled.
‘Western modernisation’ was discredited, however. State failure to deliver jobs and geopolitical pride pushed many back to religion. Piety remains high in countries where people are economically precarious.
Shaming Men on Social Media
Smart phones, social media and internet access were once heralded as revolutionary! Some imagined free media would catalyse cultural disruption; conservative traditions could now be openly critiqued. This seems naive, arrogant, and inaccurate. Liberalism is not inherently persuasive. Many people are perfectly well aware of this ideology, yet view it with contempt.
Social media can actually reinforce patriarchy, by shaming men.
Even though ‘dayooth’ is not in the Quran and the Hadiths remain vague, it has now become a major insult on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. ‘Dayooths’ are described as ‘shameless’, ‘not a real man’, ‘the worst kind of man’.
Many Tiktoks shame ‘dayooth’ who permit their wives to appear on social media or upload a Whatsapp avatar that includes themselves and their (hijabi) wife.
The TikTok below has over 40’000 likes, 600 comments.
This man (with an accent from Birmingham, UK) shames men who upload photos with their wives - 35’000 likes.
Filter bubbles can amplify group think. Companies try to maintain user attention by catering to their interests and showing similar content. Online networks can be both addictive and culturally homogenising.
Social media also enables close surveillance. On Uzbek Telegram, users share information about women’s impropriety. Indian WhatsApp groups circulate similar stories. Female students in Ankara likewise divulged being terrified of male blackmail, fearing that it might get back to their families.
By amplifying connectivity, social media means that 21st century cities are not necessarily anarchic places of escape, anonymity or freedom.
Shaming men motivates patriarchal restrictions
Some men do resist - even in very patriarchal cultures, like Fergana valley - but they face a tide of social disapproval:
“When I put my photo with my mother on Instagram, my friend immediately called me. ‘Wow, bro, do not be Dayooth. Wow, it’s awful, everybody see, it’s awful’. I was just shocked at the time.
Protect your women in your house. Women are forbidden to work, cos they should care only for their children, and they should only do housework. I am fighting with such kind of men, who are saying do not be Dayooth.
But if you are forbidding your women to go out for study, who will be doctor, who will be teacher for them?’ - Dior (young man living in Fergana, Uzbekistan).
Shaming can motivate men to impose strict controls. Saudi men are less willing to support their wives’ employment if they anticipate condemnation. Iranian graduates likewise endeavour to maintain ‘aberu’ (face). Otherwise, they are outcaste - socially and economically marginalised. Vigilant compliance with moral codes remains crucial to social mobility and respect.
A Somali man recently beat up his sister after she performed a TikTok dance. She was doing something that [many argue] made him dayooth.
The Great Gender Divergence
While female labour supply always rises in response to job-creating economic growth, it is mediated by cultural ideals. If men are mocked and derided for permitting their wives to mix with outsiders, they may prefer their wives to stay at home.
Religious shaming is especially powerful in low or middle-income countries, where economic precarity fuels tight-knit interdependence, cultural tightness and religosity. In the Middle East and North Africa, female employment thus remains low. Female labour force participation has actually fallen in Uzbekistan, where there is an increasingly prominent place for piety. Oybek (from Tashkent) says he would be more respected if his wife wears the full niqab (face covering).
Impugning men’s masculinity is hardly unique to Muslim societies. In Brazil, economic downturns (due to trade shocks) and religious television programming have heightened membership and adherence to Pentecostalism, which has similarly suppressed female employment. Hindu Bihari migrants in Kolkata are often unwilling for their wives to work, as this would be deeply shameful.
Under-development and social media shaming thus sustain 21st century patriarchy.
The map below shows places where I’ve done research on gender (pink), and the origins of migrants whom I’ve interviewed (green). My next journey is along the Silk Road.
I’m very much looking forward to spending a month in Uzbekistan. Families have generously invited me to stay with them in Tashkent, Samarkand, Namangan, Kokand and Shakhrisabz.
Thank you. A great although saddening read. I had never heard about Dayouth. It’s quite awful and contrary to western values. When people defend the veil as a choice, or that it’s only cultural, they ignore the larger misogynist culture in which Islam exists. The social pressure, and eventual risk of physical threat, to wear a veil must be overwhelming.
Very interesting article. We’ve heard much lately about growing white/Western misogyny propagating on social media, it’s connection to so-called “bro” culture, increased paternalism in the US in the form of the evangelical Christian-driven anti-abortion movement, and recently even misogynistic attitudes towards women on the rise in Germany through the AfD (despite its female leader, and with a level of female member support).
Perhaps then Dayooth is not uniquely Islamic but part of growing global social media-driven trend?