Ibn ʿArabī and Mystical Disruptions of Gender: Theoretical Explorations in Islamic Feminism

The aims of Islamic feminism are at once theological and socially reformist. Its proponents are often activists, as well as authors and scholars. It is linked to democratic reform movements within the Islamic world as well as to civil rights movements in Europe and the USA, and is supported by actors who resist the advances of patriarchal religious positions as well as Western secular definitions of modernity. Unlike secular feminists, proponents of Islamic feminism see the justification for their fight for women’s rights and gender equality in their own interpretation of Islam’s sacred text, the statements attributed to the Prophet, and his supposed life circumstances. In addition, they draw on approaches taken from new Islamic historiography. This chapter deals with the foundations of Islamic feminism and its transnational political dimension, and asks in what national and local transformation processes its proponents were able to have an impact.

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On Selective Consumerism: Egyptian Women and Ethnographic Representations

Feminist Review ◽

10.1080/014177800110070148 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 69 (1) ◽

pp. 111-123

Author(s):

Nadia Wassef

Keyword(s):

Arab World ◽

Ethnographic Research ◽

Research Subjects ◽

Islamic Feminism ◽

Power Politics ◽

Production And Consumption ◽

Starting Point ◽

Egyptian Women ◽

The Subject ◽

The Impact

In the light of postmodern debates in anthropology, ethnography offers anthropologists new ways of representing their objects of study. The politics involved in the production and consumption by feminist scholars and activists of women's representations in the Arab world, and Egypt specifically, provides the starting point of this article. Using an ethnographic text examining manifestations of ‘Islamic Feminism’ in Egypt, I explore problems in addressing the subject of veiling – a continuous favourite among researchers. Grappling with stereotypes, assumptions and pre-interpretations based on what we read before going to the field and the questions we formulate in our minds, I look towards strategies of engagement with research subjects where anthropologists can express their commitments to them. Research ethics and reflexivity offer no formulaic guarantees of better representations, but pave the way towards understanding one's motivations and urges ethnographers to examine the impact of their work, both on the immediate community, and with regard to larger power politics. Given the fluid nature of identities and the relative fixedness of representations, solutions do not appear in abundance. Working outside of unnecessary dichotomies and searching for incongruities presents interesting possibilities for future ethnographic research.

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Divorce, kinship, and errant wives: Islamic feminism in India, and the everyday life of divorce and maintenance

Ethnicities ◽

10.1177/1468796821999904 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 146879682199990

Author(s):

Sagnik Dutta

Keyword(s):

Social Life ◽

Law Reform ◽

Islamic Feminism ◽

Escape Route ◽

The Social ◽

The Family ◽

The Everyday ◽

Movement Building ◽

Muslim Communities ◽

Feminist Movements

This article is an ethnographic exploration of a women’s sharia court in Mumbai, a part of a network of such courts run by women qazi (Islamic judges) established across India by members of an Islamic feminist movement called the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (Indian Muslim Women’s Movement). Building upon observations of adjudication, counselling, and mediation offered in cases of divorce and maintenance by the woman qazi (judge), and the claims made by women litigants on the court, this article explores the imaginaries of the heterosexual family and gendered kinship roles that constitute the everyday social life of Islamic feminism. I show how the heterosexual family is conceptualised as a fragile and violent institution, and divorce is considered an escape route from the same. I also trace how gendered kinship roles in the heterosexual conjugal family are overturned as men fail in their conventional roles as providers and women become breadwinners in the family. In tracing the range of negotiations around the gendered family, I argue that the social life of Islamic feminism eludes the discourses and categories of statist legal reform. I contribute to existing scholarship on Islamic feminism by exploring the tension between the institutionalist and everyday aspects of Islamic feminist movements, and by exploring the range of kinship negotiations around the gendered family that take place in the shadow of the rhetoric of ‘law reform’ for Muslim communities in India.

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IV International Congress on Islamic Feminism (October 21-24, 2010)

Ilahiyat Studies ◽

10.12730/13091719.2010.12.23 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 282-285

Author(s):

Tuba Işık Yiğit

Keyword(s):

International Congress ◽

Islamic Feminism

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Islamic Feminism: transnational and national reflections

Approaching Religion ◽

10.30664/ar.67552 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 83-94 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Mulki Al-Sharmani

Keyword(s):

Current Knowledge ◽

Religious Faith ◽

Muslim Women ◽

Gender Justice ◽

Islamic Feminism ◽

Religious Knowledge ◽

Alternative Description ◽

Women Scholars ◽

Alternative Gender ◽

New Religion

This article focuses on contemporary interpretive knowledge projects that engage critically with Islamic religious sciences, and which are driven by the question of gender justice. These projects, which have been loosely termed as Islamic Feminism, are undertaken by Muslim women scholars from different countries who are committed to their religious faith and who are working towards the production of alternative, gender-sensitive religious knowledge. The paper has three aims: 1) to review the contestations about the definition, categorization, goals, and significance of what has been termed Islamic feminism, 2) to provide an alternative description of these knowledge projects and identify some hermeneutical characteristics that link them and which perhaps could be the basis for delineating them as a new field of knowledge, 3) to map out the trajectory of building new religion-based feminist knowledge in Egypt, shedding light on light on current knowledge projects that can be labelled as Islamic feminism.

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