The Shari’a issue (original) (raw)
Related papers
Ilahiyat Studies, 2010
The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), the Women’s Institute (Ministry of Equality), the Madrid Autonomous Community, Casa Árabe, and Fundación Pluralismo y Convivencia Casa Asia hosted, in cooperation with Junta Islámica Catalana (JIC) and with the collaboration of the United States Embassy in Spain and the Iranian Embassy in Spain, the fourth congress on “Islamic Feminism” from October 21 to 24. The organizers placed the emphasis of the proceedings on the analysis of the present status of the movement and future perspectives. They sought to understand the reasons for opposing Islamic feminism – on the part of both non-Muslims and Muslims – and to seek ways to appropriately counteract such trends. The congress attempted to explore the potential of Islamic Feminism to change the experiences of Muslim women in the different contexts in which they face discrimination.
Islamic Feminism(s): A Very Short Introduction
New Series. Issue No. 4 (18) /2015 Unveiling the Feminisms of Islam
Contemporary Islamic feminisms, already quite diverse, deconstruct preceding Islamic interpretations, proposing more egalitarian re-readings and reconceptualizations of Islamic tradition while preserving the centrality of classical textual sources (Qur’an and Sunnah) as fundamental references, the valoric hierarchies being reorganized according to the principles of Islamic ethics. The integration of social, economic, and political analysis that explain power dynamics, alienation, marginalization, and the liberation of women is another defining dimension of Islamic feminisms. Some Muslim feminists plead for the preservation and the innovative exploitations of traditional jurisprudence’s categories and purposes, while others propose a radical reform of the fundaments of Islamic disciplines. Another category of Muslim feminists prefers to adopt and integrate the discourses, approaches, and terminologies of Western feminists; some translate these in the referential Islamic system, others import them and use them as such, sometimes even from a secular perspective. In the following article I will very briefly outline some of the main determinations of this complex contemporary phenomenon – Islamic feminism(s).
WHAT IF SHARIA WEREN'T THE ENEMY?: RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S RIGHTS ADVOCACY ON ISLAMIC LAW
For many women's rights activists working internationally, especially those coming from a western context, sharia is believed to be a major obstacle to women's rights. In order to protect women from Muslim religious law, these advocates often position themselves aggressively against so-called sharia legislation and sharia in general. I believe that this approach is counterproductive and ultimately exacerbates, rather than improves, the situation for women living in Muslim-majority countries. In this article, I explain how current global feminist strategies have helped create an unwinnable and unnecessary war: that of sharia vs. women's rights. Drawing on observations incident to my work on the zina (extramarital sex) laws in Nigeria and Pakistan, I argue for an alternative: women's rights advocates concerned about the situation of Muslim women around the world would do better not to mention Islamic law at all. This would be a major strategy shift, requiring significant restraint on the part of western secular feminist activists, but I believe it is worth it. I explain how, with this shift in approach, internationally-active women's rights advocates might more effectively contribute to securing rights for women in Muslim-majority countries. This shift could also open up a new appreciation for a wider spectrum of feminism, including that coming from a sharia-mindful perspective. In short, I argue for a world of advocacy for women that is nuanced and sophisticated and works with—not against—the reality of sharia in Muslim lives.
Gender and Research. Gender a výzkum, 2019
In the current atmosphere of Islamophobia that has affl icted us worldwide and that portrays Islam as an evil religion, Muslim men as sexual predators, and Muslim women as victims of patriarchy and misogyny, it is important to emphasise that Muslim women´s voices, actions, and struggles, whether in writing or through their numerous forms of social and political activism, should be recognised for what they are: legitimate expressions of subjectivity and agency grounded in and at the same time interacting with (accepting, contesting, and/or negotiating) particular historical, local, and global contexts, creating, to borrow Arjun Appadurai’s terms (1996), various conjunctures and disjunctures.
Contesting the Dichotomy of Islam and Modernity: Islamic Feminisms
New Series. Issue No. 4 (18) /2015 Unveiling the Feminisms of Islam
Even nowadays, Muslim women, who are or are not veiled, are still not treated individually, but collectively, often reduced to „Muslimwomanˮ, an artificial determination that collapses all the aspects related to gender and religion. By promoting this insidious concept of „Muslimwomanˮ, Islamist men, non-Muslim men, orientalists, and even Muslim or non-Muslim states deny and mask the national, ethnic, cultural, historical, philosophical, and spiritual diversity of Muslim women and forcefully assume the right to decide what is good or bad for Muslim women and on their behalf.1 However, during the last decades, a salutary path for progress has been made, especially in academia; the new ideas and attitudes are also reflected in Muslim activist feminist movements. A new type of Islamic feminist resistance against the limited neo-orientalist or Islamist gender-related imaginary preserves the faith-based point of reference and facilitates the emergency of a series of various alternative Islamic gender concepts and theories, doubled by an enhanced representation of Muslim women by their own agency.
Gender relations and power structure have mostly been cemented in patriarchal values, even within some feminist movements. Masculine standards and ideals have historically been believed to be of significance and allowed in the public sphere. The masculine behavior is perceived to be the norm and the feminine to be "the other"; and only the private sphere is "the other's" domain. If a woman -or anyone who identifies themselves as women -should want to participate in the public sphere, it would be according to the masculine-prism view: the masculine rules, values and convenience. The different social institutions (e.g. Family and Marriage, work, education…etc) have all reinforced these masculine ideals and portrayed them as the norm, making these ideals an integral part of the structure. These institutions also serve to reinforce the other institutions' patriarchal viewpoint. Although, most feminist movements aim to overthrow patriarchy, other feminist movements have found themselves in a dichotomy and in effect attempted to reconcile feminism with their already established values. This research aims to find how some subsets of feminism like the Islamic feminism reinforces the patriarchal values and ultimately affects the feminist movement. I will thus be performing a comparative analysis on examples from the social institutions' structures in an attempt to de-structure the deep-seated roots of patriarchal thought and its foothold on society. This endeavor will be made through taking a closer look examples from the different social institutions in Egypt, Iran and Indonesia that govern societal relations -mainly marriage and the family, religion, political sphere and attempt to approach and highlight the systemic discriminatory practices against women and femininity reinforced by the Islamic feminism. Drawing on these analyses, I seek to investigate ISLAMIC FEMINISM 3 the historic vs. current power structure and present a different viewpoint to the predominant patriarchal prism, especially in relations to the public and the private and the values that are attached to each shedding light onto the historical and cultural pretext for the continuous reproduction of the patriarchal system.