Islam and Gender

Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the re-introduction of Sharica law relating to gender and the family, women's rights in Iran suffered a major setback. However, as the implementers of the law have faced the social realities of women's lives and aspirations, positive changes have gradually come about. Here Ziba Mir-Hosseini takes us to the heart of the growing debates concerning the ways in which justice for women should be achieved. Through a series of lively interviews with clerics in the Iranian religious center of Qom, she seeks to understand the varying notions of gender that inform Islamic jurisprudence and to explore how clerics today perpetuate and modify these notions. Mir-Hosseini finds three main approaches to the issue: insistence on "traditional" patriarchal interpretations based on "complementarity" but "inequality" between women and men; attempts to introduce "balance" into traditional interpretations; or a radical rethinking of the jurisprudential constructions of gender. She introduces the debates among the commentators by examining key passages in both written and oral texts and by narrating her meetings and discussions with the authors. Unique in its approach and its subject matter, the book relates Mir-Hosseini's engagement, as a Muslim woman and a social anthropologist educated and working in the West, with Shi'i Muslim thinkers of various backgrounds and views. In the literature on women in Islam, there is no account of such a face-to-face encounter, either between religion and gender politics or between the two genders.

History

Mir-Hosseini, Ziba

Europe

Princeton University Press

Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the re-introduction of Sharica law relating to gender and the family, women's rights in Iran suffered a major setback. However, as the implementers of the law have faced the social realities of women's lives and aspirations, positive changes have gradually come about. Here Ziba Mir-Hosseini takes us to the heart of the growing debates concerning the ways in which justice for women should be achieved. Through a series of lively interviews with clerics in the Iranian religious center of Qom, she seeks to understand the varying notions of gender that inform Islamic jurisprudence and to explore how clerics today perpetuate and modify these notions.
Mir-Hosseini finds three main approaches to the issue: insistence on "traditional" patriarchal interpretations based on "complementarity" but "inequality" between women and men; attempts to introduce "balance" into traditional interpretations; or a radical rethinking of the jurisprudential constructions of gender. She introduces the debates among the commentators by examining key passages in both written and oral texts and by narrating her meetings and discussions with the authors. Unique in its approach and its subject matter, the book relates Mir-Hosseini's engagement, as a Muslim woman and a social anthropologist educated and working in the West, with Shii'i Muslim thinkers of various backgrounds and views. In the literature on women in Islam, there is no account of such a face-to-face encounter, either between religion and gender politics or between the two genders.

If justice is an intrinsic value in Islam, why have women been treated as second-class citizens in Islamic legal tradition?\nIf justice is an intrinsic value in Islam, why have women been treated as second-class citizens in Islamic legal tradition?\nToday, the idea of gender equality, inherent to contemporary conceptions of justice, presents a challenge to established, patriarchal interpretations of Shari‘a. In thought-provoking discussions with six influential Muslim intellectuals – Abdullahi An-Na’im, Amina Wadud, Asma Lamrabet, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Mohsen Kadivar and Sedigheh Vasmaghi – Ziba Mir-Hosseini explores how egalitarian gender laws might be constructed from within the Islamic legal framework.

Journeys Toward Gender Equality in Islam

Religion & Spirituality

Islam

Oneworld Academic

Many contemporary Muslim family laws rest on patriarchal concepts. The time for change is now.\nThe model of marriage constructed in classical Islamic jurisprudence rests on patriarchal ethics that privilege men. This worldview persists in gender norms and family laws in many Muslim contexts, despite reforms introduced over the past few decades.\nIn this volume, a diverse group of scholars explore how egalitarian marital relations can be supported from within Islamic tradition. Brought together by the Musawah movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, they examine ethics and laws related to marriage and gender relations from the perspective of the Qur’an, Sunna, Muslim legal tradition, historical practices and contemporary law reform processes. Collectively they conceptualize how Muslim marriages can be grounded in equality, mutual well-being and the core Qur’anic principles of ‘adl (justice) and ihsan (goodness and beauty).

Justice and Beauty in Muslim Marriage: Towards Egalitarian Ethics and Laws

Al-Sharmani, Mulki

Rumminger, Jana

Marsso, Sarah

Both Muslims and non-Muslims see women in most Muslim countries as suffering from social, economic, and political discrimination, treated by law and society as second-class citizens subject to male authority. This discrimination is attributed to Islam and Islamic law, and since the late 19th century there has been a mass of literature tackling this issue. Recently, exciting new feminist research has been challenging gender discrimination and male authority from within Islamic legal tradition: this book presents some important results from that research. The contributors all engage critically with two central juristic concepts; rooted in the Qur’an, they lie at the basis of this discrimination. One refers to a husband’s authority over his wife, his financial responsibility toward her, and his superior status and rights. The other is male family members’ right and duty of guardianship over female members (e.g., fathers over daughters when entering into marriage contracts) and the privileging of fathers over mothers in guardianship rights over their children. The contributors, brought together by the Musawah global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, include Omaima Abou-Bakr, Asma Lamrabet, Ayesha Chaudhry, Sa‘diyya Shaikh, Lynn Welchman, Marwa Sharefeldin, Lena Larsen and Amina Wadud. CONTENTS Foreword Zainah Anwar Acknowledgements Note on Translation and Transliteration Introduction Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani and Jana Rumminger Muslim Legal Tradition and the Challenge of Gender Equality Ziba Mir-Hosseini The Interpretive Legacy of Qiwamah as an Exegetical Construct Omaima Abou-Bakr An Egalitarian Reading of the Concepts of Khilafah, Wilayah and Qiwamah Asma Lamrabet Producing Gender-Egalitarian Islamic Law: A Case Study of Guardianship (Wilayah) in Prophetic Practice Ayesha S. Chaudhry Islamic Law, Sufism and Gender: Rethinking the Terms of the Debate Sa’diyya Shaikh Qiwamah and Wilayah as Legal Postulates in Muslim Family Laws Lynn Welchman Islamic Law Meets Human Rights: Reformulating Qiwamah and Wilayah for Personal Status Law Reform Advocacy in Egypt Marwa Sharafeldin ‘Men are the Protectors and Maintainers of Women…’: Three Fatwas on Spousal Roles and Rights Lena Larsen Understanding Qiwamah and Wilayah through Life Stories Mulki Al-Sharmani and Jana Rumminger The Ethics of Tawhid over the Ethics of Qiwamah Amina Wadud About the Contributors Index

Men in Charge?: Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition

Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari is a former revolutionary and clerical reformer who became one of the Islamic Republic's most outspoken critics. His ideas of ""Islamic democratic government"" have attracted considerable attention in Iran and elsewhere. In presenting a selection of Eshkevari's writings, this book reveals a trajectory of dissent common to all Islamic nations today and makes a highly original contribution to our understanding of the difficult social and political issues confronting the Muslim world.

Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)

Tapper, Richard

World

I.B.Tauris

Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari is a former revolutionary and clerical reformer who became one of the Islamic Republic's most outspoken critics. His ideas of ""Islamic democratic government"" have attracted considerable attention in Iran and elsewhere. In presenting a selection of Eshkevari's writings, this book reveals a trajectory of dissent common to all Islamic nations today and makes a highly original contribution to our understanding of the difficult social and political issues confronting the Muslim world.

Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the re-introduction of Sharica law relating to gender and the family, women's rights in Iran suffered a major setback. However, as the implementers of the law have faced the social realities of women's lives and aspirations, positive changes have gradually come about. Here Ziba Mir-Hosseini takes us to the heart of the growing debates concerning the ways in which justice for women should be achieved. Through a series of lively interviews with clerics in the Iranian religious center of Qom, she seeks to understand the varying notions of gender that inform Islamic jurisprudence and to explore how clerics today perpetuate and modify these notions.Mir-Hosseini finds three main approaches to the issue: insistence on "traditional" patriarchal interpretations based on "complementarity" but "inequality" between women and men; attempts to introduce "balance" into traditional interpretations; or a radical rethinking of the jurisprudential constructions of gender. She introduces the debates among the commentators by examining key passages in both written and oral texts and by narrating her meetings and discussions with the authors. Unique in its approach and its subject matter, the book relates Mir-Hosseini's engagement, as a Muslim woman and a social anthropologist educated and working in the West, with Shii'i Muslim thinkers of various backgrounds and views. In the literature on women in Islam, there is no account of such a face-to-face encounter, either between religion and gender politics or between the two genders.

Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic Family Law (Society and Culture in the Modern Middle East)

Social Sciences

Debates over family law are a sensitive subject in the Muslim world, revealing something of the struggle between forces of traditionalism and modernism. The highly disparate tendencies within Islamic "fundamentalism" share a desire to re-institute Shar'ia law, regarded as the last bastion of the Islamic ideal of social relations. This book probes the theory and practice of Islamic family law in the contemporary Muslim world, focusing on the dynamics of marriage and the consequences of its breakdown, and the ways in which litigants manipulate the law to resolve marital and child custody disputes.

Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic Family Law

Self-Help

Relationships

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Books by Mir-Hosseini, Ziba

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Islam and Gender

Islam and Gender

Journeys Toward Gender Equality in Islam

Justice and Beauty in Muslim Marriage: Towards Egalitarian Ethics and Laws

Men in Charge?: Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition

Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)

Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)

Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran

Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic Family Law (Society and Culture in the Modern Middle East)

Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic Family Law