Gendering a Critical Islamic Idiom

Abstract

The subject of women’s rights has received considerable attention from contemporar Muslim scholars, intellectual and activists. Two broad trends in particular stand out on gender relations for their reinterpretation of Islam in response to social change. Islamic feminists and Muslim centrists, belonging to the Wasaṭiyya, have, with noticeable differences within each group, addressed the rights of women through separate yet not dissimilar references to the sacred texts of Islam, the Islamic tradition and universal principles. There is a pursuit of the gendering of a critical Islamic idiom. Women’s rights are located at the crossroads of critique and gender. A patchwork tradition supplies a repertoire of disparate values, methods and norms that can be employed for conflicting ends. This article is divided into two main parts. The first part examines the trend of Islamic feminism through the writings of scholars such as Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas, Asma Afsaruddin and Azizah al-Hibri who emphasise the principle of equality in gender relations. Multiple foundations, ranging from aḥādīth (Prophetic reports) to hermeneutics, are variously invoked, selected, adapted and appropriated to make the case for women’s rights in Islamic feminism. The second part shifts the focus on women’s rights to tradition and the writings of Muhammad al-Ghazali and Khaled Abou El Fadl. Their arguments are examined in a side-by-side comparison in the context of Muslim self-criticism and various Islamic feminist positions. Muhammad Abduh and Mahmoud Shaltout contributed to the development of the specific genealogy in which al-Ghazali and Abou El Fadl pursue their scholarship. Within the diverse space of the category of tradition, it is possible to situate the arguments of al-Ghazali and Abou El Fadl on women’s rights and other subjects of similar import. Gender relations for al-Ghazali and Abou El Fadl is addressed through Islamic jurisprudence and both arrive at the interpretative conclusion of women’s rights.