Islamic Feminisms

This book explores the contentious topic of women’s rights in Muslim-majority countries, with a specific focus on Iran and the Iranian women’s movement from 1906 to the present. The work contextualizes the authorial self through the use of personal narrative and interviews. A new critique of Islamic law is produced through an in-depth study of the Iranian Constitution, civil and criminal codes. The work presents a novel reconceptualization of the term "Islamic feminism" by revisiting the arguments of various scholars and through analysis of interviews with Iranian women’s rights activists. It is contended that the feminist movements can play a critical role in Islamic law reform and consequently the eventual implementation of international human rights law in Muslim-majority countries. What emerges from this study is not only a feminist critique of two major regimes of law, but also the identification of possibilities for reform in the future. The study transitions from the Iranian national context to the international by way of a comparative legal study of international human rights laws and Islamic laws. The book will appeal both to academics and human rights practitioners.

This book sets out a rationale for the compatibility of Islam and Feminism and shows that Islamic Feminism is a diverse and valuable lens through which to analyse religion and gender. In addition, including scholarship written in Arabic, it promotes the decolonisation of knowledge production around Islam, gender and sexuality. Islamic feminism is a field of study that has been marginalised both in contemporary Islamic discourse and in feminist discourse. This study counters this marginalisation in two ways. Firstly, it enumerates the diversity of approaches used in Islamic feminist scholarship. Secondly, it foregrounds voices that are often neglected in discussions of Islam, gender and sexuality by highlighting and contrasting the work of two key scholars: Kecia Ali based in the USA and Olfa Youssef based in Tunisia. The book suggests that in addition to geo-political positioning, language, as a ‘prior-text’, also influences an individual’s personal interpretation of Islamic feminism. This comparison, therefore, enables broader issues to be dissected, such as the interrelationships between life experiences, strategies of resistance to patriarchal and other forms of oppression, and the production of knowledge. This is a unique study of Islamic Feminism that will be of great use to any scholar of Religion and Gender, Islamic Studies, Gender Studies and the Sociology of Religion.

This book presents a detailed critical analysis of the work of Fatima Mernissi. Mernissi is considered to be one of the major figures in Feminist thought for both Morocco and Muslim society in general. This work discusses Mernissi's intellectual trajectory from 'secular' to 'Islamic' feminism in order to trace the evolution of so-called Islamic feminist theory. The book also engages critically with the work of other Muslim feminists, using frameworks and approaches developed in the works of Muslim reformist thinkers, namely Mohammed Arkoun and Nasr Abu Zaid, with the aim of engaging the theorization of this emerging Feminism.

Creates a new space for hybrid feminist analysis of Asian Muslim women’s lives. Contesting Feminisms explores how Asian Muslim women make decisions on appropriating Islam and Islamic lifestyles through their own participation in the faith. The contributors highlight the fact that secularism has provided the space for some women to reclaim their religious identity and their own feminisms. Through compelling case studies and theoretical discussions, this volume challenges mainstream Western and national feminisms that presume homogeneity of Muslim women’s lives to provide a deeper understanding of the multiple realities of feminism in Muslim communities. “Contesting Feminisms attempts to offer nuanced understandings of Muslim women’s struggles that are firmly rooted in close attention to local social, economic, and historical contexts with an eye to opening up theoretical spaces in which to examine local and transnational feminist Muslim activism. As such, the volume offers rich insights into women’s lives and struggles in moving away from the reductionist frame of a strictly Qur’anic view of women that is mobilized by both Western detractors and Islamic normativizers to constrain women’s agency, and instead brings into view the heterogeneity of Muslim women’s lives and struggles.” — Zayn Kassam, editor of Women and Islam

While many in the West regard feminism and Islam as a contradiction in terms, many Muslims in the East have perceived Western feminist forces in their midst as an assault upon their culture. In this career-spanning collection of influential essays, Margot Badran presents the feminisms that Muslim women have created, and examines Islamic and secular feminist ideologies side by side. Borne out of over two decades of work, this important volume combines essays from a variety of sources, ranging from those which originated as conference papers to those published in the popular press. Also including original material written specifically for this book, "Feminism and Islam" provides a unique and wide-ranging contribution to the field of Islam and gender studies.

An acclaimed Arab Studies scholar and bestselling author offers a groundbreaking new interpretation of the status and vision of Muslim women—and challenges our own sense of the meaning of feminism. "Islamic feminism" would seem a contradiction in terms to most Westerners. We are taught to think of Islam as a culture wherein social code and religious law alike force women to accept male authority and surrender to the veil. How could feminism emerge under such a code, let alone flourish? Now, traveling throughout Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as Islamic communities in the United States, acclaimed Arab Studies scholar and bestselling author Elizabeth Fernea sets out to answer that question. Fernea's dialogue with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances prompts a range of diverse and unpredictable responses, but in every country she visits, women demonstrate they are anything but passive. In Iraq, we see an 85 percent literacy rate among women; in Egypt, we see women owning their own farms; and in Israel, we see women at the very forefront of peacemaking efforts. Poor or rich, educated or illiterate, these women define their own needs, solve their own problems, and determine the boundaries of their own very real, very viable feminism.

A highly controversial intervention into the debate on postmodernism and feminism, this book looks at what happens when these modes of analysis are jointly employed to illuminate the sexual politics of Islam. As a religion, Islam has been demonized for its gender practices like no other. This book analyzes that Orientalism, with particular reference to representations of Muslim women and describes the real sexual politics of Islam. The author goes on to describe the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the West's response to it. She argues that regardless of the sophisticated argument of postmodernists and their suspicion of power, as an intellectual and political movement postmodernism has put itself in the service of power and the status quo. Moghissi brilliantly demonstrates how this trend has given rise to a neo-conservative feminism. A major feminist critique of Islamic fundamentalism, this book asks some hard questions of those who, in denouncing the racism of Western feminism, have taken up an uncritical embrace of the Islamic identity of Muslim women. It is urgent reading for all those concerned about human rights, as well as for students and academics of women's studies, political science, social theory and religious studies.

This provocative collection addresses the ways in which Arab women writers are using Islam to empower themselves, and theorizes the conditions that have made the appearance of these new voices possible.