What Might an Islamist Gender Discourse Look Like?
Keywords:
Egyptian Islamasists, Ezzat, gender and Islam, Islam and modernityAbstract
This paper attempts to review some of the arguments that lie beneath the gender discourse of Egyptian Islamists and argues that, contrary to common perceptions, and in spite of their fundamentalist understanding of Islam, modernity is influencing Islamist discourses on gender. Egyptian Heba Raouf Ezzat’s gender discourse, for example, is indebted to new feminist critiques of the Islamic tradition. The Islamist discourse on gender becomes, therefore, a modern construct that tries to bridge the gap between tradition and modernity and to reconcile two sets of principles: the traditional and patriarchal religious conception of women’s nature, role, and rights, and the new modern understanding of Muslim women’s social and political roles. In what follows, we will present Ezzat’s criticism of feminism and her own Islamic feminist project, which is best illustrated with her own understanding of Islamic methods of reformation in Islam and of religious interpretations, and her understanding of a non-binary gendered space.
References
Abu Shuqqa, ‘Abd al-Halim 1990 The Liberation of Women during the Period of Revelation: Readings in the Qur’an and the Hadith [Arabic], 6 vols. Dar al-Qalam, Kuwait.
Ahmed, Leila 1992 Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Aziz, Talib 2001 Fadlallah and the Remaking of the Marja’iya. In The Most Learned of the Shi’a: The Institution of the Marja’ Taqlid, edited by Linda S. Walbridge, 205-15. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Al-Azmeh, Aziz 1993 Islams and Modernities. Verso, London.
Badran, Margot 2002 Islamic Feminism: What’s in a Name? al-Ahram Weekly, 17–23 January. Online: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/569/cu1.htm (accessed March 29, 2006).
Islamic Feminism Revisited. Countercurrents.org, 10 February. Online: http://www.countercurrents.org/gen-badran100206.htm (accessed March 29, 2006).
Badran, Margot, and Miriam Cooke (eds.) 1990 Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Bannani, Farida 1998 Feminism: A Voice Heard in the Religious Debate [Arabic]. In The Era of Womenand Alternative Memory, edited by Huda al-Sadda. Women and Memory Forum, Cairo.
Barlas, Asma 2002 Believing Women in Islam, Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Baron, Beth 1994 The Woman’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society and the Press. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Cooke, Miriam 2001 Women Claim Islam: Creating Islamic Feminism through Literature, Routledge, New York.
Esposito, John L. 1998 Islam: The Straight Path, 3rd edn. Oxford University Press, New York.
Euben, Roxanne L. 1999 Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Ezzat, Heba Raouf 1995 Women and Political Action: the Islamic Perspective [Arabic]. The International Institute of Islamic Thought, Virginia.
a Women and Ijtihad: Towards a New Islamic Discourse [Arabic]. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 19: 96-120.
b Women and the Interpretation of Islamic Sources. Islam 21 Project, The International Forum for Islamic Dialogue: Women Issues (October). Online: http://www.islam21.net/pages/keyissues/key2-6.htm (accessed February 12, 2005).
c The Political Capacity of the Woman and her Competence in Public Office [Arabic]. IslamOnline.net. Online: http://islamonline.net/Arabic/contemporary/politic/2000/article40.shtml (accessed September 28, 2005).
a Women, Religion and Ethics—From Here We Begin [Arabic]. In Women, Religion, and Ethics [Arabic], edited by Nawal al-Sa’adawi and Heba Raouf Ezzat, 151-204. Dar al-fikr, Damascus.
b Dr. Nawal al-Sa’dawi...and the Creation of Myths [Arabic]. In Women, Religion, and Ethics [Arabic], edited by Nawaal al-Saadawi and Heba Raouf Ezzat, 247-84. Dar al-fikr, Damascus.
c A Few Lines about the Author: Hiba Raouf Ezzat [Arabic]. IslamOnline. net. Online at <http://islamonline.net?Arabic/contemporary/politics/2000/article54.shtml> (accessed October 4, 2005).
The Silent Ayesha: An Egyptian Narrative. In Globalization, Gender, and Religion: The Politics of Implementing Women’s Rights in Catholic and Muslim Contexts, edited by Jane H. Bayes and Nayareh Tohidi, 231-57. Palgrave, New York.
a Rethinking Secularism... Rethinking Feminism. IslamOnline.net (posted 01/07/2002). Online: http://www.islamonline.net?English/contemporary/2002/07/Article01.shtml (accessed June 18, 2003).
b Secularism, the State and the Social Bond: the Withering Away of the Family. In Islam and Secularism in the Middle East, edited by Azzam Tamimi and John L. Esposito, 124-38. Hurst & Company, London.
Interview: Heba Raouf Ezzat. Al-Raida [Magazine of the Institute for Women Studies in the Arab World, Lebanese American University] 20, no. 100: 63-64.
On the Future of Women and Politics in the Arab World. In Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives, edited by John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito, 2nd edn, 184-96. Oxford University Press, New York.
n.d.a The Ambiguity of the Concept of ‘Human Rights’ [Arabic]. [blog posting] Online at <http://ashahed2000.tripod.com/mfaheem/4.html> (accessed February 12, 2005).
n.d.b Many Weapons before the Raging of the Guns [Arabic]. Ikhwan-info.net. Online: http://www.ikhwan-info.net/Printarticle.php?id=15 (accessed February 12, 2005).
Fredericks, James 2003 Buddhism and Human Rights: The Recent Buddhist Discussion and Its Implications for Christianity. In Human Rights and Responsibilities in the World Religions, edited by Joseph Runzo, Nancy M. Martin, and Arvind Sharma, 247-64. Oneworld, Oxford.
Friedan, Betty 1963 The Feminine Mystique. Gollancz, London.
Beyond Gender: The New Politics of Work and Family, edited by Brigid O’Farrell. Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington.
El-Gawhary, Karim 2001 An Interview with Heba Ra’uf Ezzat. In Women and Power in the Middle East, edited by Suad Joseph and Susan Slyomovics, 99-102. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
El-Gawhary, Karim, and Heba Ra’uf Ezzat 1994 An Interview with Heba Ra’uf Ezzat. Middle East Report 191 (November–December): 26-27. Reprinted in Women and Power in the Middle East, edited by Suad Joseph and Susan Slyomovics, 199-102. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2001.
Al-Ghazali, Zaynab 1994 Reflexions on Allah’s Book [Arabic]. Dar al-Shuruk, Cairo.
Al-Hibri, Aziza 1982 A Study of Islamic Herstory: Or How Did We Ever Get Into this Mess? In Women and Islam, edited by Aziza al-Hibri et al., 209-19. Pergamon Press, Elmsford.
Hoffman, Valerie J. 1985 An Islamic Activist: Zaynab al-Ghazali: Translated from the Arabic by Valerie J. Hoffman. In Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices of Change, edited by Elizabeth W. Fernea, 233-54. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Jansen, Johannes J.G. 1997 The Dual Nature of Islamic Fundamentalism. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Lee, Robert D. 1997 Overcoming Tradition and Modernity: The Search for Islamic Authenticity. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Mahmood, Saba 2005 Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Marcotte, Roxanne 2001 Émancipation de la femme et exégèse qur’anique—chez Bint al-Shati’ (1913–1998). Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 30.3/4: 277-92.
How Far Have Reforms Gone in Islam? Women’s Studies International Forum 26.2: 153-66.
Identity, Power, and the Islamist Discourse on Women: An Exploration of Islamism and Gender Issues in Egypt. In Islam in World Politics, edited by Nelly Lahoud and Anthony H. Johns, 67-92. Routledge, London.
Mayer, Ann Elizabeth 1999 Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics, 3rd edn. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Mernissi, Fatima 1991 The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam, translated by Mary Jo Lakeland. Addison-Wesley, Reading.
Le harem politique. Le Prophète et les femmes, Albin Michel, Paris.
Mir-Hosseini, Ziba 1999 Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Moghadam, Valentine M. 2002 Islamic Feminism and Its Discontents: Toward a Resolution of the Debate. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 27.4: 15-51.
An-Na’im, Abdullahi 1987a Religious Minorities under Islamic Law and the Limits of Cultural Relativism. Human Rights Quarterly 9.1: 1-19.
b Islamic Law, International Relations, and Human Rights: Challenge and Response. Cornell International Law Journal 20: 317-35.
Negus, Sanna 2000 A Chosen Identity: Columnist and Social Critic Heba Raouf Espouses Social Equality without Feminism and Islamic Values without Islamism. Cairo Times 3.25 (January 22–26). Online: http://www.cairotimes.com/content/archiv03/raouf.html (accessed June 21, 2003).
Qureshi, Emran, and Heba Raouf Ezzat 2004 Are Sharia Laws and Human Rights compatible? [Correspondence originally published in the German daily Frankfurter Rundschau, 4 October 2004]. al-Qantara.de. Online: http://qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php?wc_c=373&wc_id=6 (accessed February 19, 2005).
El-Saadawi, Nawal 1997 The Nawal El Saadawi Reader. Zed Books, New York.
Al-Sarraf, Shayma 2001 Rulings on Women between Ijtihad and Blind Imitation [Arabic]. al-Qalam, Paris.
Shehadeh, Lamia R. 2003 The Idea of Women in Fundamentalist Islam. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Singermann, Diane 1995 Avenues of Participation: Families, Politics and Networks in an Urban Quarter of Cairo. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Singermann, Diane, and Homa Hoodfar, 1996 Development, Change and Gender in Cairo: A View from the Household. Indiana University Press, Indianapolis.
Spivak, Gayatri C. 1996 The Spivak Reader: Selected works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, edited by Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean. Routledge, New York.
Stowasser, Barbara 2001 Old Shaykhs, Young Women, and the Internet: The Rewriting of Women’s Political Rights in Islam. The Muslim World 91.1/2: 99-119.
Tibi, Bassam 1993 Islamic Law/Shari’a and Human Rights: International Law and International Relations. In Islamic Law Reform and Human Rights, Challenges and Rejoinders: Proceedings of the Seminar on Human Rights and the Modern Application of Islamic Law, Oslo 14–15 February 1992, edited with an introduction by Tore Lindholm and Kari Vogt, 75-96. Nordic Human Rights Publications, Copenhagen.
Wadud, Amina 1999 Qur’an and Women: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective. Oxford University Press, New York.
Alternative Qur’anic Interpretation and the Status of Muslim Women. In Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-Activists in North America, edited by Gisela Webb, 3-21. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse.
American Muslim Identity: Race and Ethnicity in Progressive Islam. In Progressive Muslims on Justice, Gender and Pluralism, edited by Omid Safi, 270-85. Oneworld, Oxford.
Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam. Oneworld, Oxford.
