Women Work And Islamism

Based on original research into women's participation in the workforce, this book is the most up-to-date study of women in Iran available. The Islamisation of state and society which followed the 1979 revolution involved an attempt by the Islamic state to seclude women within the home. However, the power of the state was constrained by many factors - the Iran-Iraq war, economic restructuring - and women's own responses to oppression. In spite of continual attempts by the state to strengthen patriarchal relationships, women's participation in the labour force in 1999 is greater than it was before the revolution. Women's participation in both the economy and in political movements has led to a much greater level of gender consciousness in the 1990s than at the height of westernisation in the 1960s and 70s. Religious and secular women in urban areas have demanded reforms and forced the Islamic state to return to the position of the pre 1979 reforms. Providing a history of Iran, an introduction to Islamism and an analysis of the women and Islam debate, this book will be necessary reading for students and academics of Middle East studies, women's studies and labour studies.

A classic, pioneering account of the lives of women in Islamic history, republished for a new generation This pioneering study of the social and political lives of Muslim women has shaped a whole generation of scholarship. In it, Leila Ahmed explores the historical roots of contemporary debates, ambitiously surveying Islamic discourse on women from Arabia during the period in which Islam was founded to Iraq during the classical age to Egypt during the modern era. The book is now reissued as a Veritas paperback, with a new foreword by Kecia Ali situating the text in its scholarly context and explaining its enduring influence. “Ahmed’s book is a serious and independent-minded analysis of its subject, the best-informed, most sympathetic and reliable one that exists today.”—Edward W. Said “Destined to become a classic. . . . It gives [Muslim women] back our rightful place, at the center of our histories.”—Rana Kabbani, The Guardian

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.

In the first book to address the dilemma faced by Jordanian women in the workforce, Amira El-Azhary Sonbol delineates the constraints that exist in a number of legal practices, namely penal codes that permit violence against Muslim women and personal status laws that require a husband’s permission for a woman to work. Leniency in honor crimes and early marriage and motherhood for girls are other factors that extend the patriarchal power throughout a woman’s life, and ultimately deny her full legal competency. Significantly, Sonbol notes that society’s accepting as “Islamic” the legal constraints that control women’s work constitutes a major barrier to any effort to change them, even though historically the Islamic sharia actually encourages women’s work, and despite the fact that Muslim women have contributed materially to their society’s economy. The author covers new ground as she effectively illustrates how Jordanian laws governing gender, family, and work combine with laws and legal philosophies derived from tribal, traditional, Islamic, and modern laws to form a strict patriarchal structure.

This book deconstructs the religio-political writings and political practices of the nine Islamic ideologues of the twentieth century who masterminded the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism: Hasan al-Banna, Abu al-'A'la al-Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Mortaza Mutahhari, Zaynab al-Ghazali, Hasan al-Turabi, Rashid al-Ghannoushi, and Sheikh Hussein Fadlallah. It demonstrates that although these ideologues have individual peculiarities, their consistent emphasis on the subordinate status of women in society and in their relation to men constitutes a vehicle for attaining political power. Examining the spectrum of 20th-century Islamic fundamentalist discourse on the subordinate role of women, Shehadeh builds a bridge between political ideology and gender theory. She determines how the diversity of political, social, and economic domains within the discourse of the nine ideologues--male or female, Sunni or Shi'ite, radical or moderate--applies to gender relations, and whether their discourse is distinctive or remains within the classical or traditional mold of Islam. She demonstrates that the importance given to gender issues by fundamentalist ideologues and the constraints imposed on women in society are not so much due to patriarchy as to the manipulation of such issues for purely political purposes--to assure overwhelming male support and to divert attention from the real problems of society.

Offering writings in Middle East studies by renowned scholars and by the new generation of scholars of Islam and gender, this collection includes a wide variety of cases from Middle Eastern and Islamic societies. By including case-based articles, the collection highlights the clear links between concepts and theories and actual practices.

How realistic is the prospect of peace in the Muslim world? This question is the predominant focus for global analysis today, but its debate frequently ignores the cultural and social complexity of the Muslim world, reducing it into a system of states and select actors. This book addresses such a failing by exploring how the everyday interactions of women, in accordance with Islamic personal ethics, can offer the world a new interpretation of peace. In particular, it focuses on the women in Islamic societies, from Aceh to Bosnia, Morocco to Bangladesh, initiating a dialogue on the role of these women in peacemaking. This concentration upon the complex issues of the everyday both enables a detailed exploration of how people conceptualise peace and opens up new frameworks for conflict resolution. The discussions that emerge lead to a critical questioning of assumptions about peace as a state policy and cessation of violence. Drawing upon original research from different parts of the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, including Iran, India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Egypt and Sudan, the contributors offer a refreshing new look at Muslim women as peacemakers, challenging any assumptions of Islam as an inherently violent religion. Such a timely work provides new and important analyses on the role of Muslim women in forging new pathways of peace in the contemporary world.

The essays collected in this book place this issue in its historical context and offer case studies of Muslim societies from North Africa to Southeast Asia. These fascinating studies shed light on the impact of the Islamic resurgence on gender issues in Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Oman, Bahrain, the Philippines, and Kuwait. Taken together, the essays reveal the wide variety that exists among Muslim societies and believers, and the complexity of the issues under consideration.