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Muslim Women in Law and SocietyISBN: 9780415418874Publication Date: 2007-12-19This is a timely translation of a seminal text on the role of women in Muslim society by the early 20th century thinker al-Taher al-Haddad. Considered as one of the first feminist works in Arab literature, this book will be of considerable interest to scholars of an early 'feminist' tract coming from a Muslim in Arab society.
The Women's Khutbah Book by
A first-ever collection of contemporary Muslim women's khutbahs (sermons) drawing on their social, religious, and spiritual experiences and framed by original reflections on an emerging Muslim feminist ethics Within the Muslim world, there is a dynamic and exciting social change afoot: a number of communities across the globe have embraced more gender-inclusive and representative ideas of religious authority. Within some spaces, women have taken on the role of preacher at the Jumu'ah (Friday) communal prayers. In other communities, women have been leading the prayers, officiating at marriage and funeral ceremonies, or participating on mosque boards or executive committees. These new developments signify a transformation in contemporary positions on gender and religious authority. This pioneering book makes an innovative contribution to Muslim feminist ethics. It is grounded in a collection of religious sermons (khutbahs) by contemporary Muslim women in a variety of new and emerging contexts, in South Africa, Senegal, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Canada, Mexico, the United States, Germany, Denmark, and the United Kingdom.
ISBN: 0300244169Publication Date: 2022-11-01
Muslim Women's Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond by
This book investigates female Muslims pilgrimage practices and how these relate to women's mobility, social relations, identities, and the power structures that shape women's lives. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and regional expertise, it offers in-depth investigation of the gendered dimensions of Muslim pilgrimage and the life-worlds of female pilgrims. With a variety of case studies, the contributors explore the experiences of female pilgrims to Mecca and other pilgrimage sites, and how these are embedded in historical and current contexts of globalisation and transnational mobility. This volume will be relevant to a broad audience of researchers across pilgrimage, gender, religious, and Islamic studies.
ISBN: 9781003110903Publication Date: 2020-11-15- Muslim Women's Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond by ISBN: 9781003110903Publication Date: 2020-11-15This book investigates female Muslims pilgrimage practices and how these relate to women's mobility, social relations, identities, and the power structures that shape women's lives. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and regional expertise, it offers in-depth investigation of the gendered dimensions of Muslim pilgrimage and the life-worlds of female pilgrims. With a variety of case studies, the contributors explore the experiences of female pilgrims to Mecca and other pilgrimage sites, and how these are embedded in historical and current contexts of globalisation and transnational mobility. This volume will be relevant to a broad audience of researchers across pilgrimage, gender, religious, and Islamic studies.
Women As Imams by ISBN: 9781838606183Publication Date: 2020-12-24There is a long and rich history of opinion centred on female prayer leadership in Islam that has occupied the minds of theologians and jurists alike. It includes outright prohibition, dislike, permissibility under certain conditions and, although rarely, unrestricted sanction, or even endorsement. This book discusses debates drawn from scholars of the formative period of Islam who engaged with the issue of female prayer leadership. Simonetta Calderini critically analyses their arguments, puts them into their historical context, and, for the first time, tracks down how they have informed current views on female imama (prayer leadership). In presenting the variety of opinions discussed in the past by Sunni and Shi'i scholars, and some of the Sufis among them, the book uncovers how they are, at present, being used selectively, depending on modern agendas and biases. It also reviews the roles and types of authority of current women imams in diverse contexts spanning from Asia, Africa and Europe to America. The research offers readers the opportunity to gain nuanced answers to the question of female imama today that may lead to informed discussions and to change, if not necessarily in practices then at the very least in attitudes. This ground-breaking book interrogates the cases of women who are reported to have led prayer in the past. It then analyses the voices of current women imams, many of whom engage with those women of the past to validate their own roles in the present and so pave the way for the future.
The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman by
Published in English for the first time, and the only Arabic epic named for a woman, The Tale of Princess Fatima recounts the thrilling adventures of a legendary medieval warrior universally known throughout the Middle East and long overdue to join world literature's pantheon of female heroes. A Penguin Classic A fearsome, sword-slinging heroine who defeated countless men in stealth attacks on horseback, Dhat al-Himma, or Princess Fatima, was secretly given away at birth because she wasn't male, only to triumph as the most formidable warrior of her time. Known alternately as "she-wolf," "woman of high resolve," and "calamity of the soul," she lives on in this rousing narrative of female empowerment, in which she leads armies of more than seventy thousand men in clashes between rival tribes and between Muslims and Christians; reconciles with her father after taking him prisoner; and fends off her infatuated cousin, who challenges her to a battle for the right to marry her. Though her cousin suffers an ignominious defeat, he impregnates Fatima against her will and, when she gives birth to a Black son, disowns his own son, who also grows up to be a great warrior, eventually avenging his mother's honor. The epic culminates in a showdown between Fatima and another formidable warrior woman, and earns Fatima a place alongside the likes of Circe, Mulan, Wonder Woman, Katniss Everdeen and other powerful women.
ISBN: 0143134264Publication Date: 2021-08-03
Narratives of Muslim Womanhood and Women's Agency by ISBN: 9781138560666Publication Date: 2017-11-30Portrayals of Islamic teachings in mass media, often present Muslim women as victims of patriarchal norms. Often covered in a full veil, and without individuality, they tend to be depicted using a monochrome image, across Muslim countries and regions. It does not portray the social reality and expectations of Muslim women, which are in fact diverse and contextual. This book consists of articles that attempt to answer the question, are Muslim women merely passive objects in constructing their role, despite the spread of social media and the Internet, the increased demands of earning disposable income for their families, and their migration to non-Muslim countries around the world? It closely examines women¿s agency in negotiating their role in Muslim-majority societies and in new places of settlement (Australia). These articles analyse Muslim women¿s narratives in a wide range of economic, political, social and cultural milieu and their relationship to identity construction and portrayal in the new millennium. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations.
The Unforgettable Queens of Islam by ISBN: 9781107554894Publication Date: 2020-03-26In this landmark study, Shahla Haeri offers the extraordinary biographies of several Muslim women rulers and leaders who reached the apex of political systems of their times. Their stories illuminate the complex and challenging imperatives of dynastic succession, electoral competition and the stunning success they achieved in medieval Yemen and India, and modern Pakistan and Indonesia. The written history of Islam and the Muslim world is overwhelmingly masculine, having largely ignored women and their contributions until well into the 20th century. Religious and legal justifications have been systematically invoked to justify Muslim women's banishment from politics and public domains. Yet this patriarchal domination has not gone on without serious challenges by women - sporadic and exceptional though their participation in the battle of succession has been. The Unforgettable Queens of Islam highlights lives and legacies of a number of charismatic women engaged in fierce battles of succession, and their stories offer striking insights into the workings of political power in the Muslim world.
Muslima Theology by ISBN: 9783631628997Publication Date: 2013-07-10This pioneering volume defines the contours of the emerging engagements of Muslim women scholars from around the world with the authoritative interpretive traditions of Islam, classical and contemporary. Muslima theology, here broadly defined to encompass a range of interpretive strategies and perspectives arising from multiple social locations, interrogates Islamic scripture and other forms of religious discourse to empower Muslim women of faith to speak for themselves in the interests of gender justice. Contributions provide an overview of the field at this juncture-ranging from pioneering Muslim scriptural feminism to detailed analyses of legal and mystical texts by a new international cohort of Muslim women academics and activists. Contemporary female Muslim "constructivist" approaches articulate concerns with diversity, including race and religious pluralism, paralleling developments in womanist and mujerista readings of religious texts.
Women of the Middle East by ISBN: 9780415823128Publication Date: 2015-12-01The academic study of women in the Middle East grew from traditional branches of learning such as history, anthropology, politics, and literary studies. More recently, it has incorporated cutting-edge areas of academic endeavour, including critical theory and new thinking on sexuality, labour, health, media, and material culture. As research in and around the area flourishes as never before, this new collection from Routledge meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of a rapidly growing and ever more complex corpus of scholarly literature. In four volumes, Women of the Middle Eastdraws together the key research, both canonical and contemporary, to provide users with a comprehensive survey of all the major issues relating to women in one of the world's most challenging and contested regions. Women of the Middle Eastis fully indexed and each of the four volumes has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the learned editor, which places the major works in their historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research resource. wly written by the learned editor, which places the major works in their historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research resource.
Women Rising by ISBN: 9781479801046Publication Date: 2020-06-09Groundbreaking essays by female activists and scholars documenting women's resistance before, during, and after the Arab Spring Images of women protesting in the Arab Spring, from Tahrir Square to the streets of Tunisia and Syria, have become emblematic of the political upheaval sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. In Women Rising, Rita Stephan and Mounira M. Charrad bring together a provocative group of scholars, activists, artists, and more, highlighting the first-hand experiences of these remarkable women. In this relevant and timely volume, Stephan and Charrad paint a picture of women's political resistance in sixteen countries before, during, and since the Arab Spring protests first began in 2011. Contributors provide insight into a diverse range of perspectives across the entire movement, focusing on often-marginalized voices, including rural women, housewives, students, and artists. Women Rising offers an on-the-ground understanding of an important twenty-first century movement, telling the story of Arab women's activism.
Female Religious Authority in Shi'i Islam by
Islamic religious authority is conventionally understood to be an exclusively male purview. Yet when dissected into its various manifestations--leading prayer, preaching, issuing fatwas, transmitting hadith, judging in court, teaching law, theology, and other Islamic sciences and generally shaping the Islamic scholarly tradition--nuances emerge that hint at the presence of women in the performance of some of these functions. This collection of case studies, covering the period from classical Islam to the present, and taken from across the Shi?i Islamic world, reflects on the roles that women have played in exercising religious authority across time and space. Comparative reflection on the case studies allows for the formulation of hypotheses regarding the conditions and developments--whether theological, jurisprudential, social, economic, or political--that enhanced or stifled the flourishing of female religious authority in Shi?i Islam.
ISBN: 9781474426602Publication Date: 2019-05-01
Veiled Superheroes by ISBN: 9781498536523Publication Date: 2017-11-01This groundbreaking study examines Muslim female superheroes within a matrix of Islamic theology, feminism, and contemporary political discourse. Through a close reading of texts including Ms. Marvel, Qahera, and The 99, Sophia Rose Arjana argues that these powerful and iconic characters reflect independence and agency, reflecting the diverse lives of Muslim girls and women in the world today.
A Social History of Late Ottoman Women by
In A Social History of the Late Ottoman Women, Duygu K ksal and Anastasia Falierou bring together new research on women of different geographies and communities of the late Ottoman Empire focusing particularly on the ways in which women gained power and exercised agency.
ISBN: 9789004255258Publication Date: 2013-10-10
Health, Literature and Women in Twentieth-Century Turkey by
Health, Literature and Women in Twentieth-Century Turkey offers readers fresh insight into Turkish modernity and its discourse on health, what it excludes and how these potentialities manifest themselves in women's fiction to shape the imagination of the period. Starting from the nineteenth century, health gradually became a focal topic in relation to the future of the empire, and later the Republic. Examining representations of health and illness in nationalist romances, melodramas and modernist works, this book will explore diseases such as syphilis, tuberculosis and cancer, and their representation in the literary imagination as a tool to discuss anxieties over cultural transformation. This book places Turkish literature in the field of health humanities and identifies the discourse on health as a key component in the making of the Turkish nation-building ideology. By focusing on the place of health and illness in canonical and non-canonised fiction, it opens a new field in Turkish literary studies.
ISBN: 9781032009438Publication Date: 2023-03-31
Pioneering Feminist Anthropology in Egypt by ISBN: 9789774160783Publication Date: 2007-09-07Cynthia Nelson was an outstanding professor of anthropology at AUC and the founding director of the Institute of Gender and Women's Studies. This collection of her essays, which highlight her distinguished scholarly career, is grouped under three main themes: phenomenology and the meaning ofreligious phenomena in Egypt; women, power, and politics in the Middle East; and the politics and ethics of location. Cynthia Nelson was the editor of the first Cairo Papers monograph in 1977: thirty years later, this issue marks her legacy to the humanistic and social scientific understanding ofEgypt, a legacy balanced by the enormous institutional contributions she made to establishing feminist anthropology in Egypt.
Women in the Qur'an by ISBN: 9781847740830Publication Date: 2016-05-24Today, the issue of Muslim women is held hostage between two perceptions: a conservative Islamic approach and a liberal Western approach. At the heart of this debate Muslim women are seeking to reclaim their right to speak in order to re-appropriate their own destinies, calling for the equality and liberation that is at the heart of the Qur'an. However, with few female commentators on the meaning of the Qur'an and an overreliance on the readings of the Qur'an compiled centuries ago this message is often lost. In this book Asma Lamrabet demands a rereading of the Qur'an by women that focuses on its spiritual and humanistic messages in order to alter the lived reality on the ground. By acknowledging the oppression of women, to different degrees, in social systems organized in the name of religion and also rejecting a perspective that seeks to promote Western values as the only means of liberating them, the author is able to define a new way. One in which their refusal to remain silent is an act of devotion and their demand for reform will lead to liberation. Asma Lamarbetis a pathologist in Avicenna Hospital, Rabat, Morocco. She is also an award-winning author of many articles and books tackling Islam and women's issues. Myriam Francois-Cerrahis a writer and broadcaster whose articles have been published in theGuardian,Salon, and elsewhere.
Divine Words, Female Voices: Muslima explorations in comparative feminist theology by ISBN: 9780190653378Publication Date: 2018-10-15The relationship between Islam and feminism is complex. There are many Muslim scholars who fervently promote women's equality. At the same time, there is ambivalence regarding the general norms, terminology, and approaches of feminism and feminist theology. This ambivalence is in large part aproduct of various hegemonic, androcentric, and patriarchal discourses that seek to dictate legitimate and authoritative interpretations. These discourses not only fuel ambivalence, they also effectively obscure valuable possibilities related to interreligious feminist engagement. Divine Words, Female Voices is the follow-up to Jerusha Lamptey's 2014 book, Never Wholly Other, in which she introduced the idea of "Muslima" theology and applied it to the topic of religious diversity. In this new book, she extends her earlier arguments to contend that interreligious feministengagement is both a theologically valid endeavor and a vital resource for Muslim women scholars. She introduces comparative feminist theology as a method for overcoming challenges associated with interreligious feminist engagement, reorients comparative discussions to focus on the two "DivineWords" (the Qur'an and Jesus) and feminist theology, and uses this reorientation to examine intersections, discontinuities, and insights related to diverse theological topics. This book is distinctive in its responsiveness to calls for new approaches in Islamic feminist theology, its use of themethod of comparative theology, its focus on Muslim and Christian feminist theology in comparative analysis, and its constructive articulation of Muslima theological perspectives.
20 Questions and Answers on Islam and Women from a reformist vision /Asma LamrabetISBN: 9074897843Publication Date: Paperback – 2016For centuries, the question of 'women in Islam' has been held hostage by two opposing but equally radical perspectives: one, rigid Islamic conservative; the other, western, ... 20 Questions and Answers on Islam and Women from a Reformist Vision. Front Cover. Asma Lamrabet. Amrit Publishers, 2016
Fifty Million Rising by Call Number: Olin HD6206.5 .Z34 2018ISBN: 156858590XPublication Date: 2018-01-30There is a quiet revolution that is radically reshaping the Muslim world: 50 million women have entered the workforce and are upending their countries' economies and societies. Longlisted for the FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Across the Muslim world, ever greater numbers of women are going to work. In the span of just over a decade, millions have joined the workforce, giving them more earning and purchasing power and greater autonomy. In Fifty Million Rising, award-winning economist Saadia Zahidi illuminates this discreet but momentous revolution through the stories of the remarkable women who are at the forefront of this shift--a McDonald's worker in Pakistan who has climbed the ranks to manager; the founder of an online modest fashion startup in Indonesia; a widow in Cairo who runs a catering business with her daughter, against her son's wishes; and an executive in a Saudi corporation who is altering the culture of her workplace; among many others. These women are challenging familial and social conventions, as well as compelling businesses to cater to women as both workers and consumers. More importantly, they are gaining the economic power that will upend entrenched cultural norms, re-shape how women are viewed in the Muslim world and elsewhere, and change the mindset of the next generation. Inspiring and deeply reported, Fifty Million Rising is a uniquely insightful portrait of a seismic shift with global significance, as Muslim women worldwide claim a seat at the table.
Palestinian Women's Activism: Nationalism, Secularism, Islamism by ISBN: 9780815636083Publication Date: 2018-12-26Jad traces the transformation of the Palestinian women's movement from the 1930s to the post-Oslo period and through the Second Intifada to examine the often-fraught relationship between women and nationalism in Palestine. Offering one of the first intensive studies of Islamist women's activism, Jad also explores the impact of emerging feminist NGOs in depoliticizing the secular Palestinian women's movement. Studying these two developments together illuminates the nature of women's engagement in the Palestinian space, challenging myths of gender roles' "immutability" under Islamand the supposed "modernizing" benefits of Western-style activism.
Women, Leadership and Mosques by ISBN: 9789004211469Publication Date: 2011-11-25The acceptance of female leadership in mosques and madrassas is a significant change from much historical practice, signalling the mainstream acceptance of some form of female Islamic authority in many places. This volume investigates the diverse range of female religious leadership present in contemporary Muslim communities in South, East and Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America, with chapters discussing its emergence, the limitations placed upon it, and its wider impact, as well as the physical and virtual spaces used by women to establish and consolidate their authority. It will be invaluable as a reference text, as it is the first to bring together analysis of female Islamic leadership in geographically and ideologically-diverse Muslim communities worldwide.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? by ISBN: 9780674088269Publication Date: 2015-09-07Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam. It offers a detailed, moving portrait of the actual experiences of ordinary Muslim women, and of the contingencies with which they live.
Women in the Mosque by ISBN: 9780231162661Publication Date: 2014-09-23Juxtaposing Muslim scholars' debates over women's attendance in mosques with historical descriptions of women's activities within Middle Eastern and North African mosques, Marion Holmes Katz shows how over the centuries legal scholars' arguments have often reacted to rather than dictated Muslim women's behavior. Tracing Sunni legal positions on women in mosques from the second century of the Islamic calendar to the modern period, Katz connects shifts in scholarly terminology and argumentation to changing constructions of gender. Over time, assumptions about women's changing behavior through the lifecycle gave way to a global preoccupation with sexual temptation, which then became the central rationale for limits on women's mosque access. At the same time, travel narratives, biographical dictionaries, and religious polemics suggest that women's usage of mosque space often diverged in both timing and content from the ritual models constructed by scholars. Katz demonstrates both the concrete social and political implications of Islamic legal discourse and the autonomy of women's mosque-based activities. She also examines women's mosque access as a trope in Western travelers' narratives and the evolving significance of women's mosque attendance among different Islamic currents in the twentieth century.
Women, Islam and Cinema by ISBN: 1861892209Publication Date: 2004-11-04This is the first book to examine the troubled relationships between women, Islam and cinema. Film critic and author Gnl Dnmez-Colin explores the role of women as spectators, images and image constructors in the cinemas of the countries where Islam is the predominant religion, focusing on Iran and Turkey from the Middle East, drawing parallels from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the two Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union, and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia, the prominently Muslim Asian countries with a challenging film industry. Some of the relevant films made in India by and for Muslim Indians are also explored. Dnmez-Colin examines prevalent cinematic archetypes, including the nave country girl who is deceived and dishonored, or the devious seductress who destroys the sanctity of marriage, and looks well at controversial elements such as screen rape, which, feminist film critics claim, caters to male voyeurism. She also discusses recurring themes, such as the myths of femininity, the endorsement of polygamy and the obsession with male children, as well as the most common stereotypes, depicting women as mothers, wives and daughters. Given the diversity of cultures, rather than viewing national cinemas as aspects of a single development, the author focuses on individual histories, traditions and social and economic circumstances as points of reference, which are examined in the context of social and political evolution and the status of women within Islam. Women, Islam and Cinema is a much-needed and timely work that will appeal to the curious reader as well as to the student of film.
Excellent Daughters: the secret lives of young women who are transforming the Arab world by ISBN: 9781594203886Publication Date: 2016-01-12For more than a decade, Katherine Zoepf has lived in or travelled throughout the Arab world, reporting on the lives of women, whose role in the region has never been more in flux. Today, Arab women outnumber men in universities, and a few are beginning to face down religious and social tradition in order to live independently, to delay marriage and to pursue professional goals. Deeply informed, heartfelt and urgent, Excellent Daughters brings us a new understanding of changing Arab societies and gives voice to the remarkable women at the forefront of this change.
Hermeneutics and Honor by ISBN: 0932885217Publication Date: 2000-02-01Women's traversal of public space in Islamic/ate societies and the ensuing process of negotiating gendered identities are the central concerns of this collection of essays. The dichotomy between private and public spheres, upheld as axiomatic for most societies, has recently been challenged by scholars as an artificial construct. For women in particular, the demarcation between the two spheres has become blurred by the enormous public consequences of their private behaviour. Elaborate cultural codes of honour and traditional, masculinist interpretations of scripture have reinforced the public-private polarity and restricted Muslim women's access to the public realm as conventionally defined. The distinguished contributors to this volume provide insight into how women from different social strata and historical periods in various Islamic/ate societies have creatively engaged with these limitations upon their behaviour.
Women's Rebellion and Islamic Memory by ISBN: 1856493970Publication Date: 1996-07-15Chronicling ten years of research, this book presents a sustained analysis of the position of women in the world of contemporary Islam. The book first explores some of the concrete issues fundamental to the status of Muslim women, such as the production of statistics which mask women's contribution to the economies of the Arab States. The author also looks at a variety of demographics, including education and literacy. Mernissi shows their importance, not only for empowering women, but also for improving their health. She analyzes the role of the State in prescribing women's roles, activities and spheres, and explores the insidious consequences of state-supported inequality, not only for women but for the creative and spiritual life of a culture.
Islam and Democracy by ISBN: 0738207454Publication Date: 2002-04-18Is Islam compatible with democracy? Must fundamentalism win out in the Middle East, or will democracy ever be possible? In this book, Islamic sociologist Fatima Mernissi explores the ways in which progressive Muslims - defenders of democracy, feminists and others trying to resist fundamentalism - must use the same sacred texts as Muslims who use them for violent ends, to prove different views.
Beyond the Veil by ISBN: 0253204232Publication Date: 1987-04-22"Required reading... " --Elizabeth Fernea, The University of Texas at Austin "If a reader were to select only one book in order to gain insight into women's status and prospects in Islamic society, this study should be the one chosen for its clarity, honesty, depth of knowledge and thought-provoking qualities." --Arab Book World In this expanded and updated edition, with a new introduction on Muslim women and fundamentalism, Mernissi argues that Islamic fundamentalism is in part a defense against recent changes in sex roles and perceptions of sexual identity.- The Muslimah Sex Manual: A Halal Guide to Mind Blowing Sex byCall Number: olin BP190.5.S4 U46 2017ISBN: 1521482411Publication Date: 2017-07-02Two years ago, I was congratulating a young Muslimah on her engagement. She was thrilled about starting married life and you could see the happiness emanating from her as everyone gave her their best wishes.A few months later, I could tell something was wrong.After some cajoling, she shyly admitted the truth. Her sex life was horrible. In fact, it was fast becoming non-existent. She had been a model Muslimah her entire life. Before marriage, she had never so much as held a non-mahram's hand, let alone become physically intimate with one. She had eagerly looked forward to marriage as a chance to finally indulging in all the physical intimacy she had postponed for the sake of Allah.But it wasn't working.Coming from the medical field, she knew all the relevant biology. She could draw and label all the parts of male and female anatomy. She had taken fiqh classes and knew the legal rulings of menstruation and intercourse.But she didn't know sex.Oh, she knew the mechanics. Insert penis into vagina. Climax. Withdraw. But she didn't know how to make her husband yearn for her in bed. She didn't know what he liked. She didn't even know what she liked! They had begun eagerly but after a few weeks, realized that neither of them was truly enjoying having sex with each other.And so began my impromptu sex skills workshop. I threw at her all the information I'd gathered over years of marriage. Things I'd learned from experience, tidbits I'd gleaned from friends, tips I'd picked up from magazine articles. One thing here, two things there. All those bits had accumulated into a very healthy and robust sex life between me and my husband. I gave her everything, fervently hoping that it would help her in her marital life.A month later, I saw her again. This time she had a gigantic smile on her face. "Please, write this down and share it with other Muslim girls. No one teaches this. We're thrown into marriage and only know the fiqh and the biology."I wrote down everything I told her on a Word document and emailed it to her. She shared it with her friends who were newly married. They shared it with their friends. Before long, word trickled back to me that people were asking me to write a book on the subject.So here it is.
- Woman's Identity and the Qu'ran byISBN: 0813027853Publication Date: 2004-12-31An original study of the Qur'anic foundations of women's identity and agency, this book is a bold call to Muslim women and men to reread and reinterpret the Qur'an and to discover within its revelations an inherent affirmation of gender equality. Barazangi asserts that Muslim women have been generally excluded from full participation in Islamic society, and thus from full and equal Islamic identity, primarily because of patriarchal readings of the Qur'an and the entire range of early Qur'anic literature. Based on her study of the sacred text, she argues that Islamic higher learning is a basic human right, that women have equal authority to participate in the interpretation of Islamic primary sources, and that women will realize their just role in society and their potential as human beings only when they are involved in the interpretation of the Qur'an. Barazangi offers a curricular framework for self-teaching that could prepare Muslim women for an active role in citizenship and policymaking in a pluralistic society by affirming the self-identity of the Muslim woman as an autonomous spiritual and intellectual human being.
Qur'an of the Oppressed by Call Number: olin BP173.7 R29 2017ISBN: 9780198796480Publication Date: 2017-04-16This study analyses the commentaries of four Muslim intellectuals who have turned to scripture as a liberating text to confront an array of problems, from patriarchy, racism, and empire to poverty and interreligious communal violence. Shadaab Rahemtulla considers the exegeses of the SouthAfrican Farid Esack (b. 1956), the Indian Asghar Ali Engineer (1939-2013), the African American Amina Wadud (b. 1952), and the Pakistani American Asma Barlas (b. 1950). Rahemtulla examines how these intellectuals have been able to expound this seventh-century Arabian text in a socially liberatingway, addressing their own lived realities of oppression, and thus contexts that are worlds removed from that of the text's immediate audience. Through a close reading of their works, he underlines the importance of both the ethico-social content of the Qur'an and their usage of new and innovativereading practices.This work provides a rich analysis of the thought-ways of specific Muslim intellectuals, thereby substantiating a broadly framed school of thought. Rahemtulla draws out their specific and general importance without displaying an uncritical sympathy. He sheds light on the impact of modern exegeticalcommentary which is more self-consciously concerned with historical context and present realities. In a mutually reinforcing way, this work thus illuminates both the role of agency and hermeneutical approaches in modern Islamic thought.
The Making of a Salafi Muslim Woman by Call Number: olin BP195.S18 I54 2016ISBN: 9780190611675Publication Date: 2016-10-11The spread of Salafism - often called "Wahhabism" - in the West has intrigued and alarmed observers since 9/11. Many see it as a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that subjugates women and fuels Jihadist extremism. According to this view, Salafi women are the unwilling victims of apatriarchal, fanatical version of Islam. Yet, in Britain, growing numbers of educated women - often converts or from less conservative Muslim backgrounds - are actively choosing to embrace Salafism's literalist beliefs and strict guidelines, including full veiling, wifely obedience, and seclusionfrom non-related men. How do these young women reconcile these demands with their desire for fulfilling careers, university degrees and suitable husbands? How do their beliefs affect their love lives and other relationships? And why do they become Salafis in the first place?Anabel Inge has gained unprecedented access to Salafi women's groups in the UK to provide the first in-depth and vivid account of their lives. Drawing on more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in London, she probes the reasons for Salafism's appeal among young Somalis,Afro-Caribbean converts, and women from other backgrounds. She also reveals how the women's lives are fraught with personal dilemmas. This ground-breaking, lucid, and richly detailed contribution will be of interest to policy-makers, journalists, scholars, and general readers.
From Victims to Suspects by ISBN: 9780300230420Publication Date: 2019-02-26Drawing on interviews and examples from across the globe, this book tackles the shifting narratives surrounding Muslim women Once regarded as passive victims waiting to be rescued, Muslim women are now widely regarded as arbiters of "terror" and a potential threat to be kept under control. Drawing on interviews and examples from around the world including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Europe, and North America, Shakira Hussein shows how this shift in attitude has taken place and how it impacts feminism, multiculturalism, race, and religion on a global scale. She argues that alongside the fear of Islamic terrorism is a growing fear of Islam as a cultural hazard that is undermining Western society from within. Muslim women, the transmitters of cultural practices, are frequently seen to play a key role in this. Hussein's work makes for a compelling read, offering a unique perspective on what it means to be a Muslim woman post-9/11.
Conceiving Identities by ISBN: 9781438447858Publication Date: 2013-11-01Explores how medieval Muslim theologians constructed a female gender identity based on an ideal of maternity and how women contested it.
Female Personalities in the Qur'an and Sunna by ISBN: 9780415839389Publication Date: 2014-09-25This book investigates the manner in which the Qur'an and sunna depict female personalities in their narrative literature. Providing a comprehensive study of all the female personalities mentioned in the Qur'an, the book is selective in the personalities of the sunna, examining the three prominent women of ahl al-bayt; Khadija, Fatima, and Zaynab. Analysing the major sources of Imami Shi'i Islam, including the exegetical compilations of the eminent Shi'i religious authorities of the classical and modern periods, as well as the authoritative books of Shi'i traditions, this book finds that the varieties of female personalities are portrayed as human beings on different stages of the spiritual spectrum. They display feminine qualities, which are often viewed positively and are sometimes commendable traits for men, at least as far as the spiritual domain is concerned. The theory, particularly regarding women's humanity, is then tested against the depiction of womanhood in the hadith literature, with special emphasis on Nahj al-Balagha. Contributing a fresh perspective on classical materials, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Islamic Studies, Women's Studies and Shi'i Studies.- The Forgotten Queens of Islam byISBN: 0816624380Publication Date: 1993-07-01
Women Claim Islam by ISBN: 0415925541Publication Date: 2000-11-08This text presents the literature of contemporary Islamic feminist authors, and analyzes their strategies for self-definition and self-empowerment.
On Shifting Ground by ISBN: 155861513XPublication Date: 2005-11-01In Iran, hundreds of women are producing blogs, sharing their ideas in an Islamic republic that still limits women's expression. In Malaysia, members of Sisters in Islam are challenging sexist interpretations of Islamic theology and law. And throughout the Arabic-speaking world, satellite TV stations like Al-Jazeera have spawned "new Scheherazades"--women journalists and hosts whose voices have a powerful impact on the public discourse. This unique, cutting-edge book of essays--the first to include work by 2003 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi--explodes Western stereotypes about Middle Eastern women. Here, writers from across the Islamic world describe how women are claiming their full voice in politics, religion, and culture, making powerful use of new media--and sometimes facing powerful backlash.
The Language of Tears by ISBN: 9781935952428Publication Date: 2015-11-03The Language of Tears details the engaging five-year experience of a gifted American scholar throughout her journey teaching and participating in a Shi’a Muslim community in Southern California. As a teacher in a Muslim school, she participates in the lives of Iranian, Iraqi, and Pakistani women as they perform their religious rituals. Initially thought to be an FBI informant, Blomfield builds trust as she participates in every aspect of their lives. Only a few weeks after she starts teaching, the fifth-grade girls invite her to attend a religious ritual after school. Sitting, covered in black, she starts to engage: hearing the laments of the women, she too starts to weep. She is invited into the women’s homes, where they share their hopes, dreams, and fears. She dances at weddings, baby showers, and a Mother’s Day "women’s only" swim party. She is deeply honored when she is invited to ritually wash and bury an old Iranian woman’s body, erupting a love for her own mother and her imminent death. Finally, she travels to Iran for a surreal religious pilgrimage where she becomes Shi’a "in her heart," becoming more fully human.
Beyond the Exotic by ISBN: 0815630557Publication Date: 2005-06-14This volume introduces new sources for the study of the past and present life of Muslim women that challenge paradigms about the ways in which "they" have been studied in the past. Most research has treated stereotypical images of Muslim women's outward manifestations, such as veiling, as passive and oppressivewomen were depicted as different. Exoticizing (orientalizing) Muslim womenor Islamic society in generalhas meant that "they" are dealt with outside of general women's history and thus have little to contribute to the writing of world history or to the life of their sisters worldwide. By approaching widely used sources with different questions and methodologies, and by using new or little-used research (with much primary research), this book redresses these deficiencies. Amira El-Azhary Sonbol and the contributors deconstruct the past and offer fresh new perspectives. Authors revisit and reevaluate scripture and scriptural interpretation; church records involving non-Muslim women of the Arab world; archival court records dating from the present back to the Ottoman period; and the oral and material culture and its written record, including art and architecture, oral history, textbooks, sufi practices, and the politics of dress.
The Butterfly Mosque by ISBN: 9780802118875Publication Date: 2010-06-01The extraordinary story of an all-American girl’s conversion to Islam and her ensuing romance with a young Egyptian man,The Butterfly Mosque is a stunning articulation of a Westerner embracing the Muslim world. When G. Willow Wilson--already an accomplished writer on modern religion and the Middle East at just twenty-seven--leaves her atheist parents in Denver to study at Boston University, she enrolls in an Islamic Studies course that leads to her shocking conversion to Islam and sends her on a fated journey across continents and into an uncertain future. She settles in Cairo where she teaches English and submerges herself in a culture based on her adopted religion. And then she meets Omar, a passionate young man with a mild resentment of the Western influences in his homeland. They fall in love, entering into a daring relationship that calls into question the very nature of family, belief, and tradition. Torn between the secular West and Muslim East, Willow records her intensely personal struggle to forge a "third culture” that might accommodate her own values without compromising the friends and family on both sides of the divide.
Wanted Women by ISBN: 9780060898977Publication Date: 2012-01-17A riveting look at militant Islam, Muslim women’s rights, and the war on terror—brought into focus through two lives on opposite sides: activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and religious extremist Aafia Siddiqui. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born former member of the Dutch Parliament and the author of the international bestseller Infidel, was raised as a Muslim fundamentalist in Kenya. A feminist, political analyst, writer, and fierce critic of her former religion, she champions the West in what she insists must be a war against Islam. Hirsi Ali’s personal tale of courage in the face of constant threats from violent, fanatic enemies has won the admiration of millions in America and around the world. Aafia Siddiqui, a native of Pakistan, moved to the United States to pursue a doctorate in neuroscience. A decade later, she returned to Pakistan, where her involvement with al-Qaeda, including her marriage to one of the 9/11 plotters, led the CIA to regard her as one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. Her disappearance, capture, and conviction in a New York City courtroom for attempted murder have earned her, too, admiration across the globe—from millions of radical Islamists. Reconstructing the histories of these two women, award-winning author and journalist Deborah Scroggins weaves a provocative true-life thriller from two separate but strangely parallel lives in a time of bitter battle. Based on remarkable original research and reporting, Wanted Women traces their origins to explain why they chose opposite paths and how each has risen to become revered and reviled as an international symbol of her beliefs. Scroggins reveals controversial details about Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui, and about the political machinations that have transformed them into emblems of a civilizational struggle. Wanted Women provides an illustrative take on our time, stripping away the illusions—about women, war, faith, and power—that have distorted the conflict on both sides.
The Caged Virgin by ISBN: 0743288335Publication Date: 2006-04-25Muslims who explore sources of morality other than Islam are threatened with death, and Muslim women who escape the virgins' cage are branded whores. So asserts Ayaan Hirsi Ali's profound meditation on Islam and the role of women, the rights of the individual, the roots of fanaticism, and Western policies toward Islamic countries and immigrant communities. Hard-hitting, outspoken, and controversial,The Caged Virginis a call to arms for the emancipation of women from a brutal religious and cultural oppression and from an outdated cult of virginity. It is a defiant call for clear thinking and for an Islamic Enlightenment. But it is also the courageous story of how Hirsi Ali herself fought back against everyone who tried to force her to submit to a traditional Muslim woman's life and how she became a voice of reform.Born in Somalia and raised Muslim, but outraged by her religion's hostility toward women, Hirsi Ali escaped an arranged marriage to a distant relative and fled to the Netherlands. There, she learned Dutch, worked as an interpreter in abortion clinics and shelters for battered women, earned a college degree, and started a career in politics as a Dutch parliamentarian. In November 2004, the violent murder on an Amsterdam street of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, with whom Hirsi Ali had written a film about women and Islam calledSubmission, changed her life. Threatened by the same group that slew van Gogh, Hirsi Ali now has round-the-clock protection, but has not allowed these circumstances to compromise her fierce criticism of the treatment of Muslim women, of Islamic governments' attempts to silence any questioning of their traditions, and of Western governments' blind tolerance of practices such as genital mutilation and forced marriages of female minors occurring in their countries.Hirsi Ali relates her experiences as a Muslim woman so that oppressed Muslim women can take heart and seek their own liberation. Drawing on her love of reason and the Enlightenment philosophers on whose principles democracy was founded, she presents her firsthand knowledge of the Islamic worldview and advises Westerners how best to address the great divide that currently exists between the West and Islamic nations and between Muslim immigrants and their adopted countries.An international bestseller -- with updated information for American readers and two new essays added for this edition --The Caged Virginis a compelling, courageous, eye-opening work.
Daughters of Tunis by ISBN: 0813339448Publication Date: 2002-08-14Daughters of Tunis is an innovative ethnography that carefully weaves the words and intimate, personal stories of four Tunisian women and their families with a statistical analysis of women’s survival strategies in a rapidly urbanizing, industrializing Muslim nation. Delineating three distinct network strategies, Holmes-Eber demonstrates the "public” role of neighborhoods as informal social security systems, and the impact of women’s education, class and migration on women’s resources and networks. An engaging, warm, and oftentimes humorous portrait of Muslim women’s responses to development,Daughters of Tunis is an exciting new approach to ethnography: merging the historically disparate methods of both qualitative and quantitative analysis.
Gender and Islam in Africa by ISBN: 9780804774819Publication Date: 2011-06-09Gender and Islam in Africa examines ways in which women in Africa are interpreting traditional Islamic concepts in order to empower themselves and their societies. African women, it argues, have promoted the ideals and practices of equality, human rights, and democracy within the framework of Islamic thought, challenging conventional conceptualizations of the religion as gender-constricted and patriarchal. The contributors come from the fields of history, anthropology, linguistics, gender studies, religious studies, and law. Their depictions of African women's interpreting and reinterpreting of Islam go back into the nineteenth century and up to today, including analyses of how cultural media such as popular song and film can communicate new gender roles in terms of sexuality and direct examinations of religious and religiously based family law and efforts to reform them.
Harem Years by ISBN: 0935312706Publication Date: 1993-01-01In this rare first-hand account of the private world of a Cairo harem during the years before Egypt declared independence in 1922, Shaarawi recalls her childhood and early adult life in the seclusion of an upper-class Egyptian household, including her marriage at age thirteen. Her subsequent separation from her husband gave her time for an extended formal education, as well as an unexpected taste of independence and a critical understanding of the price of confinement. Shaarawi's feminist activism grew along with her involvement in Egypt's nationalist struggle and culminated in 1923 in a daring act of defiance,when she publicly removed her veil in a Cairo railroad station.
Headscarves and Hymens by ISBN: 9780865478039Publication Date: 2015-04-21When the Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy published an article in Foreign Policy in 2012 titled "Why Do They Hate Us?," it provoked a firestorm of controversy. The response it generated, with more than four thousand posts on the website, broke all records for the magazine, prompted dozens of follow-up interviews on radio and television, and made it clear that misogyny in the Arab world is an explosive issue, one that engages and often enrages the public. In Headscarves and Hymens, Eltahawy takes her argument further. Drawing on her years as a campaigner and commentator on women's issues in the Middle East, she explains that since the Arab Spring began, women in the Arab world have had two revolutions to undertake: one fought with men against oppressive regimes, and another fought against an entire political and economic system that treats women as second-class citizens in countries from Yemen and Saudi Arabia to Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. Eltahawy has traveled across the Middle East and North Africa, meeting with women and listening to their stories. Her book is a plea for outrage and action on their behalf, confronting the "toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend." A manifesto motivated by hope and fury in equal measure, Headscarves and Hymens is as illuminating as it is incendiary.
Jewels of Allah by ISBN: 9780986406416Publication Date: 2015-06-25The popular narrative about women's lives in Iran over the last forty years goes something like this: "During the Pahlavi Monarchy, women were on an upward trajectory. In a nation on the cusp of modernity, women actively participated. They were given the right to vote and were free to be in public without veils; they wore miniskirts on university campuses. Then came the Islamic Revolution in 1979, with Ayatollah Khomeini at the helm. The burgeoning freedoms for women were extinguished. The veil was required and institutions were segregated by gender. The Islamic Republic had thus achieved its goal of resurrecting the image of the traditional Muslim woman." The problem with popular narratives is that, despite their convenient half-truths, the real story is more complicated, unexpected, and less tidy. Inspired by author Nina Ansary's scholarly journey, Jewels of Allah is a provocative roller coaster ride that shatters the stereotypical assumptions and the often misunderstood story of women in Iran today. Highlighting many courageous female leaders and advocates throughout Iran's history, the book illuminates the unanticipated consequences of the Islamic Revolution and the unexpected twists and turns leading to a full-blown feminist movement within a post-revolutionary patriarchal society. Jewels of Allah is dedicated to every individual oppressed by discriminatory ideology. 100% of all proceeds from the sale of the book will go to charitable organizations and institutions, with the primary recipient being the OMID Foundation, a 501(c)(3) registered organization that has been empowering disadvantaged young women in Iran for over 10 years. For more information on the OMID Foundation, please visit: http://www.omidfoundation.com.
Modernizing Women by ISBN: 9781588269331Publication Date: 2013-07-01
Opening the Gates by ISBN: 0253217032Publication Date: 2004-09-21Praise for the first edition: "An impressive collection of more than 50 pieces--essays, poems, folktales, short stories, memoirs, film scripts, lectures/speeches--by Arab women challenging the widely accepted view of Middle Eastern women as submissive non-thinkers to whom feminism is a foreign concept." --Booklist "Anyone interested in good writing should read [Opening the Gates]. Here are first-class stories with the energy and freshness we expect from a beginning." --Doris Lessing, The Independent "This collection of stories, speeches, essays, poems and memoirs bears fierce testimony to a tradition of brave Arab feminist writing in the face of subjugation by a Muslim patriarchy."--Publishers Weekly "This impressive collection of writings by Arab women... represent[s] a powerful series of vignettes by women who were both insightful and gifted, into the lives of women who have lived 'behind the veil' over the last 100 years."--Arab Book World "An expression of indigenous, intrepid feminism in the Arab world."--Ms. "Opening the Gates succeeds not because of its methodology, but because of the stories the women tell."--Voice Literary Supplement
Shaping Gender Policy in Turkey by ISBN: 9781438447711Publication Date: 2013-07-01Timely analysis of the ways in which women grassroots activists, the European Union, and the Turkish state are involved in shaping gender policies in Turkey.
Unveiling the Harem by ISBN: 9780815632931Publication Date: 2012-07-01
Women's Roles in the Middle East and North Africa by ISBN: 9780313362408Publication Date: 2010-04-01This concise, content-rich volume provides an overview of women's roles in the Middle East and North Africa from the advent of Islam to the present. * A chronology of women's roles in the Middle East and North Africa encompassing work, religion, family, law, politics, and culture from pre-Islamic to contemporary times * Photographs illustrating various aspects of women's lives in the region * A selected bibliography including contemporary articles on new topics in women's research * A brief glossary of key terms such as abaya, sharia, and mahr
Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East by ISBN: 9780813321011Publication Date: 1999-07-16In this important new work, Margaret Meriwether and Judith Tucker synthesize and make accessible the results of the extensive research on women and gender done over the last twenty years. Using new theoretical approaches and methodologies as well as nontraditional sources, scholars studying women and gender issues in Middle Eastern societies have made great progress in shedding light on these complex subjects. A Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East provides an overview of this scholarship on women and gender in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Middle East.The book is organized along thematic lines that reflect major focuses of research in this area?gender and work, gender and the state, gender and law, gender and religion, and feminist movements?and each chapter is written by a scholar who has done original research on the topic. Although structured around the individual author's own work, the chapters also include overviews and assessments of other research, highlights of ongoing debates and key issues, and comparisons across regions of the Middle East. An insightful introduction centers the various chapters around key theoretical, methodological, and historical issues and makes connections with other areas of social historical research on the Middle East and with research on gender and women's history in other parts of the world.Although there are many studies available on women and gender, A Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East provides a breadth of coverage and assessment of the field that is not found elsewhere.
Remaking Women by ISBN: 9780691057927Publication Date: 1998-07-21Contrary to popular perceptions, newly veiled women across the Middle East are just as much products and symbols of modernity as the upper- and middle-class women who courageously took off the veil almost a century ago. To make this point, these essays focus on the "woman question" in the Middle East (most particularly in Egypt and Iran), especially at the turn of the century, when gender became a highly charged nationalist issue tied up in complex ways with the West. The last two decades have witnessed an extraordinary burst of energy and richness in Middle East women's studies, and the contributors to this volume exemplify the vitality of this new thinking. They take up issues of concern to historians and social thinkers working on the postcolonial world. The essays challenge the assumptions of other major works on women and feminism in the Middle East by questioning, among other things, the familiar dichotomy in which women's domesticity is associated with tradition and modernity with their entry into the public sphere. Indeed, Remaking Women is a radical challenge to any easy equation of modernity with progress, emancipation, and the empowerment of women. The contributors are Lila Abu-Lughod, Marilyn Booth, Deniz Kandiyoti, Khaled Fahmy, Mervat Hatem, Afsaneh Najmabadi, Omnia Shakry, and Zohreh T. Sullivan.The book is introduced by the editor with a piece called "Feminist Longings and Postcolonial Conditions," which masterfully interfaces the critical studies of feminism and modernism with scholarship on South Asia and the Middle East.
Feminism in Islam by ISBN: 9781851685561Publication Date: 2009-02-01While many in the West regard feminism and Islam as a contradiction in terms, many Muslims in the East have perceived Western feminist forces in their midst as an assault upon their culture. In this career-spanning collection of influential essays, Margot Badran presents the feminisms that Muslim women have created, and examines Islamic and secular feminist ideologies side by side. Borne out of over two decades of work, this important volume combines essays from a variety of sources, ranging from those which originated as conference papers to those published in the popular press. Also including original material written specifically for this book, Feminism and Islam provides a unique and wide-ranging contribution to the field of Islam and gender studies. Margot Badran is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, US. She is currently Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Religion, Northwestern University, US. She is the author of Feminists, Islam and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt
Everyday Lived Islam in Europe by ISBN: 9781472417541Publication Date: 2013-12-11This book offers a new direction for the study of contemporary Islam by focusing on what being Muslim means in peopleOCOs everyday lives. It complements existing studies by focusing not on mosque-going, activist and devout Muslims, but on those who are nominal believers, or who put their religion to work in OCyunorthodoxOCO ways. As well as offering fresh empirical studies of everyday lived Islam, the book offers a new approach which calls for the study of OCyhighOCO religion and everyday OCypopularOCO religion in relation to one another."
Women in Islam and the Middle East by Call Number: Olin Library HQ1170 .W578 2008ISBN: 9781845113858Publication Date: 2008-05-15Much of the lively and often heated debate on the role of women in Islam and Middle Eastern society is grounded in different readings of the primary Arabic, Persian, Turkish and other sources and historical precedents. These key texts remain inaccessible to English-speaking readers. "Women in Islam and the Middle East" fills this gap by gathering material concerning women in Islam from a wide range of sources, dating from the early Islamic period to the present day. The readings cover various aspects of women's experience: legal, domestic, political, religious and cultural, and are accompanied by introductions that explain the background of each source and discuss some of the questions raised. Bibliographies direct readers to additional material. This reader has been compiled with both undergraduate and graduate students in mind, but it will also be of interest to anyone concerned with issues of gender and Islamism.
Liberating Shahrazad by Call Number: Olin Library PJ7519.W66 G384 2007ISBN: 0816648832Publication Date: 2006-12-07Shahrazad, the legendary fictional storyteller who spun the tales of the 1,001 Arabian Nights, has long been rendered as a silent exotic beauty by Western film and fiction adaptations. Now, she talks back to present a new image of Muslim women. In Liberating Shahrazad, Suzanne Gauch analyzes how postcolonial writers and filmmakers from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia have reclaimed the storyteller in order to portray Muslim women in ways that highlight their power to shape their own destinies. Gauch looks at Maghrebian works that incorporate Shahrazad's storytelling techniques into unexpected and unforeseen narratives. Highlighting the fluid nature of storytelling, Gauch demonstrates how these new depictions of Shahrazad--from artists such as Moufida Tlatli, Fatima Mernissi, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Assia Djebar, Leïla Sebbar--navigate the demands of a global marketplace, even as they reshape the stories told about the Islamic world. In the face of both rising fundamentalism and proliferating Western media representations of Arab and Muslim women as silent, exploited, and uneducated victims, Gauch establishes how contemporary works of literature and film revive the voice of a long-silenced Shahrazad--and, ultimately, overthrow oppressive images of Muslim women. Suzanne Gauch is assistant professor of English and women's studies at Temple University.
Women's Movements in Post- Arab Spring North Africa by ISBN: 9781137506757Publication Date: 2016-06-15Unexpected and transformative revolutions broke off in North Africa and quickly spread to the Middle East and the rest of the world in 2010 and 2011. Spontaneous, leaderless, youth-driven, and backed by social media, these revolutions called for karamah (dignity) and democracy. Centering on women's movements before, during, and after the revolutions, Women's Movements in Post-"Arab Spring" North Africa highlights the broader sources of authority that affected the emergence of new feminist actors and agents and their impact on the sociopolitical landscapes of the region. Until recently, studies of North African women's movements have focused on single aspects of women's achievements at a time. By providing a comparative analysis, this book for the first time sheds light not only on the role that these superstructures play in shaping women's experiences in North Africa, but also on the rich variety of women's responses to authority, and their potential contributions to African and global feminist thought. From the pre-history of the revolutions to their aftermath, the far-reaching historical and national scope of this collection expands the study of women's movements in North Africa beyond national borders, while still paying close attention to local characteristics.
Islam by ISBN: 0195396006Publication Date: 2010-07-02Now in a new edition, this exceptionally successful survey text introduces the faith, belief, and practice of Islam from its earliest origins up to its contemporary resurgence. John L. Esposito, an internationally renowned expert on Islam, traces the development of this dynamic faith and itsimpact on world history and politics. Lucidly written and expansive in scope, Islam: The Straight Path, Fourth Edition, provides keen insight into one of the world's least understood religions. It is ideally suited for use in courses on Islam, comparative religions, and Middle Eastern history andculture.
Shariah : what everyone needs to know by ISBN: 9780199325054Publication Date: 2018-04-11Sharia is by now a term that most Americans and Europeans recognize, though few really understand what it means. Often portrayed as a medieval system used by religious zealots to oppress women and deny human rights, conservative politicians, media commentators, and hardline televangelistsstoke fear by promoting the idea that Muslims want to impose a repressive Sharia rule in America and Europe. Despite the breadth of this propaganda, a majority of Muslims - men and women - support Sharia as a source of law. In fact, for many centuries Sharia has functioned for Muslims as a positivesource of guidance, providing a moral compass for individuals and society. This critical new book by John L. Esposito and Natana Delong-Bas aims to serve as a guide for what everybody needs to know in the conversation about Sharia, responding to misunderstandings and distortions, and offeringanswers to questions about the origin, nature, and content of Sharia.- Muslim Women and the Challenge of Islamic Extremism byISBN: 9789832622277
The Religion of Islam by ISBN: 1258154811Publication Date: 2011-10-01
North African Women after the Arab Spring by ISBN: 9783319499253Publication Date: 2017-07-20This book looks with hindsight at the Arab Spring and sheds light on the debates it triggered within North African societies and the alarming developments in women's rights. Although women played a key role in the success of the uprisings that wiped out long ruling oligarchies across the region, they remain excluded from decision-making circles and the formal political and electoral apparatus. Women's rights are written off constitution drafts, and issues of gender equality are hardly addressed. The chapters that compose this volume present research and reflections from different perspectives to help the reader get a better picture of the profound turmoil that beset this part of the so-called "Arab" World. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the contributors discuss a host of questions related to women and gender in the Arab world and address the broader question of why women's efforts and momentum during the revolution did not seem to pay off the same way they did for men. This book provides an assessment of the situation from the inside. It is intended to help the general public as well as the academic world comprehend the significance of what is going on in this key part of the Islamic World.
The Women Who Built the Ottoman World by ISBN: 9781784539269Publication Date: 2017-08-30At the beginning of the 18th Century, the Ottoman Empire remained the grandest and most powerful of Middle Eastern Empires - it was also the 'Golden Age' of Ottoman patronage. One hitherto overlooked aspect of the empire's remarkable cultural legacy was the role of powerful women - often the head of the harem, or wives or mothers of Sultans. These educated and discerning patrons left a great array of buildings across the Ottoman lands; opulent, lavish and powerful palaces and mausoleums, but also essential works for ordinary citizens, such as bridges and waterworks. Muzaffer Ozgules here uses new primary scholarship and archaeological evidence to reveal the stories of these Imperial builders. Gulnus Sultan for example, the head of the imperial harem under Mehmed IV and mother to his sons, was often pictured on horseback, and travelled widely across the Middle East commissioning architects and craftsmen as she went. Her buildings were personal projects designed to showcase Ottoman power and they were built from Constantinople to Mecca, from modern-day Ukraine to Algeria. Ozgules seeks to re-establish the importance of some of these buildings, since lost, and traces the history of those that remain. The Women Who Built the Ottoman World is a valuable contribution to the architectural history of the Ottoman Empire, and to the growing history of the women within it.
The Lonely War : one woman's account of the struggle for modern Iran by Call Number: olin DS318.81 .F38 2014ISBN: 9780465069996Publication Date: 2014-12-09In the summer of 2009, as she was covering the popular uprisings in Tehran for the New York Times, Iranian journalist Nazila Fathi received a phone call. "They have given your photo to snipers," a government source warned her. Soon after, with undercover agents closing in, Fathi fled the country with her husband and two children, beginning a life of exile. In The Lonely War, Fathi interweaves her story with that of the country she left behind, showing how Iran is locked in a battle between hardliners and reformers that dates back to the country's 1979 revolution. Fathi was nine years old when that uprising replaced the Iranian shah with a radical Islamic regime. Her father, an official at a government ministry, was fired for wearing a necktie and knowing English; to support his family he was forced to labor in an orchard hundreds of miles from Tehran. At the same time, the family's destitute, uneducated housekeeper was able to retire and purchase a modern apartment--all because her family supported the new regime. As Fathi shows, changes like these caused decades of inequality--especially for the poor and for women--to vanish overnight. Yet a new breed of tyranny took its place, as she discovered when she began her journalistic career. Fathi quickly confronted the upper limits of opportunity for women in the new Iran and earned the enmity of the country's ruthless intelligence service. But while she and many other Iranians have fled for the safety of the West, millions of their middleclass countrymen--many of them the same people whom the regime once lifted out of poverty--continue pushing for more personal freedoms and a renewed relationship with the outside world. Drawing on over two decades of reporting and extensive interviews with both ordinary Iranians and high-level officials before and since her departure, Fathi describes Iran's awakening alongside her own, revealing how moderates are steadily retaking the country.
The Favored Daughter: One Woman's Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future by ISBN: 9780230342026Publication Date: 2013-04-16As America prepares to draw down its forces in Afghanistan, this story of survival and hope from a voice of the country's most oppressed group could not be more timely. Born to the second of her father's seven wives in rural Afghanistan, Fawzia Koofi's mother--who had hoped for a son--left her to die in the sun after birth. But despite a childhood of abuse and deprivation in a notoriously sexist society, she rose above her fate to become the first female Speaker of Parliament. Along the way, she faced the murders of her father, brother, and husband, and numerous attempts on her life. Here, she shares her amazing story, punctuated by a series of poignant letters she wrote to her two daughters before each political trip--letters describing the future and freedoms she dreamed of for them and all their countrywomen. This eloquent memoir pleads for the world to recognize the politically devastating consequences if a frustrated American military relinquishes the country to the Taliban, undoing all the fragile progress of recent years.
The Beekeeper : Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq. by ISBN: 9780811226127Publication Date: 2018-03-27Since 2014, Daesh (ISIS) has been brutalizing the Yazidi people of northern Iraq: sowing destruction, killing those who won't convert to Islam, and enslaving young girls and women.The Beekeeper, by the acclaimed poet and journalist Dunya Mikhail, tells the harrowing stories of several women who managed to escape the clutches of Daesh. Mikhail extensively interviews these women--who've lost their families and loved ones, who've been sexually abused, psychologically tortured, and forced to manufacture chemical weapons--and as their tales unfold, an unlikely hero emerges: a beekeeper, who uses his knowledge of the local terrain, along with a wide network of transporters, helpers, and former cigarette smugglers, to bring these women, one by one, through the war-torn landscapes of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, back into safety.In the face of inhuman suffering, this powerful work of nonfiction offers a counterpoint to Daesh's genocidal extremism: hope, as ordinary people risk their own lives to save those of others.
The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem by ISBN: 9781107108295Publication Date: 2018-08-31Eunuchs were a common feature of pre- and early modern societies that are now poorly understood. Here, Jane Hathaway offers an in-depth study of the chief of the African eunuchs who guarded the harem of the Ottoman Empire. A wide range of primary sources are used to analyze the Chief Eunuch's origins in East Africa and his political, economic, and religious role from the inception of his office in the late sixteenth century through the dismantling of the palace harem in the early twentieth century. Hathaway highlights the origins of the institution and how the role of eunuchs developed in East Africa, as well as exploring the Chief Eunuch's connections to Egypt and Medina. By tracing the evolution of the office, we see how the Chief Eunuch's functions changed in response to transformations in Ottoman society, from the generalized crisis of the seventeenth century to the westernizing reforms of the nineteenth century.
Milliyetci Devlet Feminizmi Söylemi: Türk Kadini Dergisi (1966-1974) Örnegi (Turkish) = Nationalist State Feminism Discourse: The Case of Türk Kadını Magazine (1966-1974) by ISBN: 6052885092Publication Date: 2018Nationalist State Feminism Discourse: The Case of Türk Kadını Magazine (1966-1974)
Abstract
In this research all issues of the Türk Kadını (Turkish Woman) magazine, published between 1966 and 1974 are studied in regard to three research questions: (1) How are Turkish women represented in the Türk Kadını magazine? (2) Does this representation of Turkish women suggest the existence of a state feminism discourse in the magazine? (3) If so, what kind of state feminism discourse is this? The conclusion of the present study is that Turkish women are conceptualized as Mother Citizens with duties to their Anatolian sisters as well as Cold War homefront duties regarding the protection of the Turkish Republic. Accordingly, the magazine exemplifies a nationalist state feminist discourse. Such a discourse conditions the promotion of women’s rights or most important interests upon women’s fulfilling certain civic duties to their nation and its state. The nationalist state feminist discourse portrays the Turkish woman as an active and strong subject, an agent with rights as well as duties. This study contributes to the literature of non-Western state feminism in general and to the literature on Turkish state feminism in particular. In contrast to the previous literature on Turkish state feminism, with its focus on Kemalist reforms to improve women’s legal status during the first years of the Republic, the present study shows that other periods, such as the Cold War era, could and should be studied from the point of view of state feminism.
Keywords: State feminism, Turkish state feminism, nationalist state feminism, Mother Citizen, Turkish women, Türk Kadını.
The Struggle for Modern Turkey by ISBN: 9781788313575Publication Date: 2019-06-27
Ottoman Harem - The Male and Female Slavery in Islamic Law = İslâm hukukunda kölelik-câriyelik müessesesi ve Osmanlı'da harem / Ahmed Akgündüz ; translater, Şükran Vahide. Hardcover – 2015.
Translation of the Turkish edition published in 1995. Part One: the distortions and misrepresentations of male and female slavery and the Harem, together with some examples. Part Two: male and female slavery in non-Muslim societies and in other religions. Part Three: the institutions of male and female slavery in Islamic law. Part Four: aspects of the practice of slavery, male and female, in the Ottoman state. Part Five: an investigation of the question: what is the Harem? Part Six: a lady governess's memoirs of the Harem. Part Seven: the replies to a number of important questions on these subjects. Translation of the Turkish edition published in 1995. Part One: the distortions and misrepresentations of male and female slavery and the Harem, together with some examples. Part Two: male and female slavery in non-Muslim societies and in other religions. Part Three: the institutions of male and female slavery in Islamic law. Part Four: aspects of the practice of slavery, male and female, in the Ottoman state. Part Five: an investigation of the question: what is the Harem? Part Six: a lady governess's memoirs of the Harem. Part Seven: the replies to a number of important questions on these subjects.
Osmanlı'da harem ve cariyelik : 19. yüzyıl [Harem ve cariyelik] / metin Dr. T. Cengiz Göncü ; editör Dr. İlona Baytar, Mehmet Ali Güveli. [olin HQ1726.7 .G655 2015]
Osmanlı saray teşkilatı içinde Harem-i Hümâyûn’un kavram olarak hem somut (fiziki7mimari) hem de soyut birer karşılığı vardır. Fiziki bir yapı olarak Harem-i Hümâyûn, padişahın, aile üyelerinin ve onlara hizmet eden cariyelerin yaşadıkları, dışa kapalı bir mekânı temsil ederken, mimari olarak incelendiğinde Osmanlı saray teşkilat, teşrifat ve âdâbın tüm izlerinin, mekâna yansıdığı görünür. ...
Everyday Lives of Ottoman Muslim Women: Hanımlara Mahsûs Gazete (Newspaper for Ladies) (1895-1908) / by Ayşe Zeren Enis. Istanbul : Libra Kitapçılık ve Yayıncılık, 2013. 785 pages [ olin PN5355.T84 H369 2013]
Published for thirteen years (1895-1908), Hanımlara Mahsûs Gazete (Newspaper for Ladies), with its articles and news about education, family, household, household management, child-rearing, hygiene, health, beauty, embroidery, leisure and fashion is a precious source reflecting not only the ideal everyday life of an ideal Ottoman woman of the upper and middle classes of Ottoman society in an era of modernization and westernization but also Sultan Abdülhamid II's oppressive censorship policies as imposed on the press. In this sense, the main argument of this book examines the characteristics of an urban, upper and middle class "ideal" Ottoman Muslim woman or womanhood and her supposed everyday life during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II as portrayed by the articles in Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete.
For More Titles: Women in Islam / Women (Islamic Law) / Muslim Women / Islam & gender / Islamic Dress Code / Feminisim & Islam/ Sex Roles, Islam ...
Islamic Fundamentalism, Feminism, and Gender Inequality in Iran under Khomeini by ISBN: 0761823883Publication Date: 2002-09-10In this book, utilizing the case of Iran under Khomeini, the author analyzes the relationship between Islam, Islamic fundamentalism and gender inequality.
The Unforgettable Queens of Islam by
In this landmark study, Shahla Haeri offers the extraordinary biographies of several Muslim women rulers and leaders who reached the apex of political systems of their times. Their stories illuminate the complex and challenging imperatives of dynastic succession, electoral competition and the stunning success they achieved in medieval Yemen and India, and modern Pakistan and Indonesia. The written history of Islam and the Muslim world is overwhelmingly masculine, having largely ignored women and their contributions until well into the 20th century. Religious and legal justifications have been systematically invoked to justify Muslim women's banishment from politics and public domains. Yet this patriarchal domination has not gone on without serious challenges by women - sporadic and exceptional though their participation in the battle of succession has been. The Unforgettable Queens of Islam highlights lives and legacies of a number of charismatic women engaged in fierce battles of succession, and their stories offer striking insights into the workings of political power in the Muslim world.
ISBN: 9781107123038Publication Date: 2020-03-26
Women in Place by ISBN: 9780520304277Publication Date: 2019-12-24While much has been written about the impact of the 1979 Islamic revolution on life in Iran, discussions about the everyday life of Iranian women have been glaringly missing. Women in Place offers a gripping inquiry into gender segregation policies and women's rights in contemporary Iran. Author Nazanin Shahrokni takes us onto gender-segregated buses, inside a women-only park, and outside the closed doors of stadiums where women are banned from attending men's soccer matches. The Islamic character of the state, she demonstrates, has had to coexist, fuse, and compete with technocratic imperatives, pragmatic considerations regarding the viability of the state, international influences, and global trends. Through a retelling of the past four decades of state policy regulating gender boundaries, Women in Place challenges notions of the Iranian state as overly unitary, ideological, and isolated from social forces and pushes us to contemplate the changing place of women in a social order shaped by capitalism, state-sanctioned Islamism, and debates about women's rights. Shahrokni throws into sharp relief the ways in which the state strives to constantly regulate and contain women's bodies and movements within the boundaries of the "proper" but simultaneously invests in and claims credit for their expanded access to public spaces.
Sexual Jihad by ISBN: 9781498557511Publication Date: 2019-06-15Female terrorists are a rare phenomenon. Less than ten terrorist organizations throughout the world have women. These terrorist groups are either Marxist (atheist) or Jihadist in their ideologies. This book ascertains, "What is the role of Islam in female terrorism?" It explores the roles of women in eight jihadist case studies including: Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Chechen Separatists, Boko Haram, HAMAS, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and Al Qaeda. Secondary sources and primary sources are used including research conducted on Palestinian women in Israeli prisons who have been convicted of terrorism. It is argued that are three roles for women in Jihadist terrorism: the disposable, the domestic, and the secretary. The theory posited in this book is that the role of women in terrorist groups is similar to their cultural/religious roles in society.- Narratives of Muslim Womanhood and Women's Agency by ISBN: 9781138560666Publication Date: 2017-11-30Portrayals of Islamic teachings in mass media, often present Muslim women as victims of patriarchal norms. Often covered in a full veil, and without individuality, they tend to be depicted using a monochrome image, across Muslim countries and regions. It does not portray the social reality and expectations of Muslim women, which are in fact diverse and contextual. This book consists of articles that attempt to answer the question, are Muslim women merely passive objects in constructing their role, despite the spread of social media and the Internet, the increased demands of earning disposable income for their families, and their migration to non-Muslim countries around the world? It closely examines women¿s agency in negotiating their role in Muslim-majority societies and in new places of settlement (Australia). These articles analyse Muslim women¿s narratives in a wide range of economic, political, social and cultural milieu and their relationship to identity construction and portrayal in the new millennium. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations.
Gender and Self in Islam by Call Number: Olin HQ1170 .A69 2006ISBN: 9780415701037Publication Date: 2006-11-01Using philosophical analysis, this book explores the construction of gender in Muslim societies and its implication to the constitution of the self. The root of the existing discourse of the hierarchical principle is examined as is the extent to which the process of human reproduction, especially the role of women in conception, contributes to an anti-egalitarian theory of gender. The author analyzes the theological, cultural and political apparatus of the masculine conception of femininity and seeks to unfold the process of the alienation of the self from a woman¿s sense of individuality, agency, and autonomy. Incorporating traditional Islamic sources, Western feminist texts and Christian texts, Gender and Self in Islam seeks to restructure the contradictory claims of gender hierarchy and egalitarianism and elaborate an alternative set of interpretations that is friendly and inclusive of women.- Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East by Call Number: Olin HQ1726.5 .S63 1999ISBN: 9780813321011Publication Date: 1999-07-16In this important new work, Margaret Meriwether and Judith Tucker synthesize and make accessible the results of the extensive research on women and gender done over the last twenty years. Using new theoretical approaches and methodologies as well as nontraditional sources, scholars studying women and gender issues in Middle Eastern societies have made great progress in shedding light on these complex subjects. A Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East provides an overview of this scholarship on women and gender in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Middle East.The book is organized along thematic lines that reflect major focuses of research in this area?gender and work, gender and the state, gender and law, gender and religion, and feminist movements?and each chapter is written by a scholar who has done original research on the topic. Although structured around the individual author's own work, the chapters also include overviews and assessments of other research, highlights of ongoing debates and key issues, and comparisons across regions of the Middle East. An insightful introduction centers the various chapters around key theoretical, methodological, and historical issues and makes connections with other areas of social historical research on the Middle East and with research on gender and women's history in other parts of the world.Although there are many studies available on women and gender, A Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East provides a breadth of coverage and assessment of the field that is not found elsewhere.
The Veil and the Male Elite by ISBN: 9780201632217Publication Date: 1992-12-21Convinced that the veil is a symbol of unjust male authority over women, in 'The Veil and the Male Elite', Moroccan feminist Fatima Mernissi aims to investigate the origins of the practice in the first Islamic community.
Remaking Women by ISBN: 0691057923Publication Date: 1998-07-21Contrary to popular perceptions, newly veiled women across the Middle East are just as much products and symbols of modernity as the upper- and middle-class women who courageously took off the veil almost a century ago. To make this point, these essays focus on the "woman question" in the Middle East (most particularly in Egypt and Iran), especially at the turn of the century, when gender became a highly charged nationalist issue tied up in complex ways with the West. The last two decades have witnessed an extraordinary burst of energy and richness in Middle East women's studies, and the contributors to this volume exemplify the vitality of this new thinking. They take up issues of concern to historians and social thinkers working on the postcolonial world. The essays challenge the assumptions of other major works on women and feminism in the Middle East by questioning, among other things, the familiar dichotomy in which women's domesticity is associated with tradition and modernity with their entry into the public sphere. Indeed, Remaking Women is a radical challenge to any easy equation of modernity with progress, emancipation, and the empowerment of women. The contributors are Lila Abu-Lughod, Marilyn Booth, Deniz Kandiyoti, Khaled Fahmy, Mervat Hatem, Afsaneh Najmabadi, Omnia Shakry, and Zohreh T. Sullivan.The book is introduced by the editor with a piece called "Feminist Longings and Postcolonial Conditions," which masterfully interfaces the critical studies of feminism and modernism with scholarship on South Asia and the Middle East.
Writing Women's Worlds by ISBN: 0520079469Publication Date: 1992-06-01In 1978 Lila Abu-Lughod climbed out of a dusty van to meet members of a small Awlad 'Ali Bedouin community. The anthropologist was about to join that community to learn from them. Living in this Egyptian Bedouin settlement for extended periods during the following decade, Abu-Lughod took part in family life, with its moments of humour, affection and anger. She witnessed striking changes, both cultural and economic, and she recorded the stories of the women. Writing Women's Worlds is Abu-Lughod's telling of those stories; it is also about what happens in bringing the stories to others.- Pioneering Feminist Anthropology in Egypt by ISBN: 9789774160783Publication Date: 2007-09-07Cynthia Nelson was an outstanding professor of anthropology at AUC and the founding director of the Institute of Gender and Women's Studies. This collection of her essays, which highlight her distinguished scholarly career, is grouped under three main themes: phenomenology and the meaning ofreligious phenomena in Egypt; women, power, and politics in the Middle East; and the politics and ethics of location. Cynthia Nelson was the editor of the first Cairo Papers monograph in 1977: thirty years later, this issue marks her legacy to the humanistic and social scientific understanding ofEgypt, a legacy balanced by the enormous institutional contributions she made to establishing feminist anthropology in Egypt.
Women and Media in the Middle East : from veiling to blogging by ISBN: 9781138928176Publication Date: 2015-06-24The traditional image of the Middle Eastern woman, as portrayed by the Western media, has tended to be one of a woman oppressed by men and religion. Veiling intensifies this image of supposed powerlessness and imprisonment. However, the Arab Spring uprisings have introduced the West to women in the Middle East who do not conform to this stereotype, and have shown the Western media that Middle Eastern women cannot be categorized altogether as one oppressed, powerless group. This book investigates the diverse realities and complexities of women in the Middle East in terms of their relationship with media platforms old and new. Contributors offer a range of perspectives that discuss everything from media portrayals of the veil to women in film and television, from women#65533;s involvement as activists on the street to the role played in the Arab Spring by cyber activism. The collection provides insight into how some women in the Middle East are utilizing traditional as well as new media for purposes of self-expression, activism, and democratization, while also investigating media portrayals of women at home and in the West. This book was originally published as a special issue of Feminist Media Studies.
Gender and Sexuality in Islam CC 4V by ISBN: 9781138854123Publication Date: 2016-04-20Exploring the multifaceted nature of gender and sexuality within Islamic societies in a trans-disciplinary and trans-regional fashion, this collection addresses the following questions: What are the principal methodologies for studying gender and sexuality in Islam? What is Islamic feminism? How do we understand the role of gender in the Islamic revival movements that have emerged since the last quarter of the twentieth century? How have historical forces and political projects--colonialism, nationalism, and modernity--constituted gender relations? How have sexual ideologies and practices transformed in Muslim majority societies in the modern era? What is the relationship between the global circulation of LGBTQ identities and queer and sexual counter-publics in the Islamic world? Gender and Sexuality in Islamhighlights methodologically innovative work while covering an expansive geographical range that includes the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central, South and Southeast Asia, and Europe and North America. The volumes cover: Gender and the Ethical Subject; Gender, Empire, and Nation; Sexualities, Intimacy, and the Body; and Gender, Sexuality, and Representation. The set will be of use to scholars, students, and general readers.
Female Circumcision and the Politics of Knowledge by ISBN: 9780897898652Publication Date: 2005-07-01Heated debates about and insurgencies against female circumcision are symptoms of a disease emanating from a mindset that produced hierarchies of humans, conquered colonies, and built empires. The loss of colonies and empires does not in any way mitigate the ideological underpinnings of empire-building and the knowledge construction that subtends it. The mindset finds its articulation at points of coalescence. Female circumcision provided a point of coalescence and impetus for this articulation. Insisting that the hierarchy on which the imperialist project rests is not bipolar but multi-layered and more complex, the contributions in this volume demonstrate how imperialist discourses complicate issues of gender, race, and history. Nnaemeka gives voice to the silenced and marginalized, and creates space for them to participate in knowledge construction and theory making. The authors in this volume trace the travels of imperial and colonial discourses from antecedents in anthropology, travel writings, and missionary discourse, to modern configurations in films, literature, and popular culture. The contributors interrogate foreign, or Western, modus operandi and interventions in the so-called Third World and show how the resistance they generate can impede development work and undermine the true collaboration and partnership necessary to promote a transnational feminist agenda. With great clarity and in simple, accessible language, the contributors present complex ideas and arguments which hold significant implications for transnational feminism and development.
The Muslimah Sex Manual by ISBN: 1521482411Publication Date: 2017-07-02Two years ago, I was congratulating a young Muslimah on her engagement. She was thrilled about starting married life and you could see the happiness emanating from her as everyone gave her their best wishes.A few months later, I could tell something was wrong.After some cajoling, she shyly admitted the truth. Her sex life was horrible. In fact, it was fast becoming non-existent. She had been a model Muslimah her entire life. Before marriage, she had never so much as held a non-mahram's hand, let alone become physically intimate with one. She had eagerly looked forward to marriage as a chance to finally indulging in all the physical intimacy she had postponed for the sake of Allah.But it wasn't working.Coming from the medical field, she knew all the relevant biology. She could draw and label all the parts of male and female anatomy. She had taken fiqh classes and knew the legal rulings of menstruation and intercourse.But she didn't know sex.Oh, she knew the mechanics. Insert penis into vagina. Climax. Withdraw. But she didn't know how to make her husband yearn for her in bed. She didn't know what he liked. She didn't even know what she liked! They had begun eagerly but after a few weeks, realized that neither of them was truly enjoying having sex with each other.And so began my impromptu sex skills workshop. I threw at her all the information I'd gathered over years of marriage. Things I'd learned from experience, tidbits I'd gleaned from friends, tips I'd picked up from magazine articles. One thing here, two things there. All those bits had accumulated into a very healthy and robust sex life between me and my husband. I gave her everything, fervently hoping that it would help her in her marital life.A month later, I saw her again. This time she had a gigantic smile on her face. "Please, write this down and share it with other Muslim girls. No one teaches this. We're thrown into marriage and only know the fiqh and the biology."I wrote down everything I told her on a Word document and emailed it to her. She shared it with her friends who were newly married. They shared it with their friends. Before long, word trickled back to me that people were asking me to write a book on the subject.So here it is.
The Politics of Female Circumcision in Egypt by ISBN: 9781784531577Publication Date: 2016-03-30The percentage of women aged 15-49 in Egypt who have undergone the procedure of female circumcision, or genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) stands at 91%, according to the latest research carried out by UNICEF. Female circumcision has become a global political minefield with 'Western' interventions affecting Egyptian politics and social development, not least in the area of democracy and human rights. Maria Frederika Malmström employs an ethnographic approach to this controversial issue, with the aim of understanding how female gender identity is continually created and re-created in Egypt through a number of daily practices, and the central role which female circumcision plays in this process. Viewing the concept of 'agency' as critical to the examination of social and cultural trends in the region, Malmström explores the lived experiences and social meanings of circumcision and femininity as narrated by women from Cairo. It is through the examination of the voices of these women that she offers an analysis of gender identity in Egypt and its impact on women's sexuality.
Women and Public Space in Turkey by ISBN: 9781784537524Publication Date: 2018-09-30Turkey's process of 'modernization' developed rapidly during the second half of the twentieth century. New social and legal reforms were institutionalized and political and economic changes located the country as a more liberated, 'Western-style' society. Women and Public Space in Turkey provides a historical understanding of women's experiences of this modernization between 1950 and 1980, a vital period in which their participation in urban public life expanded through higher education and employment. Selda Tuncer examines the precise conditions that enabled women to leave the home and reveals how they perceived and experienced urban public space and social relations. Drawing on interviews with two generations of women from Ankara, and using personal family photographs, the book provides invaluable insights into women in a predominantly Muslim society who are living in a highly secular social context. Tuncer specifically focuses on women's everyday experiences and discusses how the relationship between women and public space was actually controlled and regulated by different notions of 'domestication', especially in the micro-politics of daily life. The book sheds new light on the gendered processes of nation-building, socio-cultural transformations, and the crucial connections between gender, modernity and the urban experience in a non-Western context.
Gender in Judaism and Islam by ISBN: 9781479853267Publication Date: 2014-12-05Jewish andIslamic histories have long been interrelated. Both traditions emerged fromancient cultures born in the Middle East and both are rooted in texts andtraditions that have often excluded women. At the same time, both groups haverecently seen a resurgence in religious orthodoxy among women, as well asgrowing feminist movements that challenge traditional religious structures. In theUnited States, Jews and Muslims operate as minority cultures, carving out aplace for religious and ethnic distinctiveness. The time is ripe for a volumethat explores the relationship between these two religions through the prism ofgender. Gender in Judaism and Islam brings togetherscholars working in the fields of Judaism and Islam to address a diverse rangeof topics, including gendered readings of texts, legal issues in marriage anddivorce, ritual practices, and women's literary expressionsand historical experiences, along with feminist influences within the Muslimand Jewish communities and issues affecting Jewish and Muslim women incontemporary society. Carefully crafted, including section introductions by theeditors to highlight big picture insights offered by the contributors, thevolume focuses attention on the theoretical innovations that gender scholarshiphas brought to the study of Muslim and Jewish experiences.At a timewhen Judaism and Islam are often discussed as though they were inherently atodds, this book offers a much-needed reconsideration of the connections andcommonalties between these two traditions. It offers new insights into each ofthese cultures and invites comparative perspectives that deepen ourunderstanding of both Islam and Judaism.
Debating Sharia by ISBN: 9781442642621Publication Date: 2012-05-11When the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice announced it would begin offering Sharia-based services in Ontario, a subsequent provincial government review gave qualified support for religious arbitration. However, the ensuing debate inflamed the passions of a wide range of Muslim and non-Muslim groups, garnered worldwide attention, and led to a ban on religiously based family law arbitration in the province. Debating Sharia sheds light on how Ontario's Sharia debate of 2003-2006 exemplified contemporary concerns regarding religiosity in the public sphere and the place of Islam in Western nation states. Focusing on the legal ramifications of Sharia law in the context of rapidly changing Western liberal democracies, Debating Sharia approaches the issue from a variety of methodological perspectives, including policy and media analysis, fieldwork, feminist examinations of the portrayals of Muslim women, and theoretical examinations of religion, Sharia, and the law. This volume is an important read for those who grapple with ethnic and religio-cultural diversity while remaining committed to religious freedom and women's equality.
Gender Hierarchy in the Qur'An by ISBN: 9781107041523Publication Date: 2015-06-09This book explores how medieval and modern Muslim religious scholars ('ulamā') interpret gender roles in Qur'ānic verses on legal testimony, marriage, and human creation. Citing these verses, medieval scholars developed increasingly complex laws and interpretations upholding a male-dominated gender hierarchy; aspects of their interpretations influence religious norms and state laws in Muslim-majority countries today, yet other aspects have been discarded entirely. Karen Bauer traces the evolution of their interpretations, showing how they have been adopted, adapted, rejected, or replaced over time, by comparing the Qur'ān with a wide range of Qur'ānic commentaries and interviews with prominent religious scholars from Iran and Syria. At times, tradition is modified in unexpected ways: learned women argue against gender equality, or Grand Ayatollahs reject sayings of the Prophet, citing science instead. This innovative and engaging study highlights the effects of social and intellectual contexts on the formation of tradition, and on modern responses to it.- Female Personalities in the Qur'an and Sunna by ISBN: 9780415839389Publication Date: 2014-09-25This book investigates the manner in which the Qur'an and sunna depict female personalities in their narrative literature. Providing a comprehensive study of all the female personalities mentioned in the Qur'an, the book is selective in the personalities of the sunna, examining the three prominent women of ahl al-bayt; Khadija, Fatima, and Zaynab. Analysing the major sources of Imami Shi'i Islam, including the exegetical compilations of the eminent Shi'i religious authorities of the classical and modern periods, as well as the authoritative books of Shi'i traditions, this book finds that the varieties of female personalities are portrayed as human beings on different stages of the spiritual spectrum. They display feminine qualities, which are often viewed positively and are sometimes commendable traits for men, at least as far as the spiritual domain is concerned. The theory, particularly regarding women's humanity, is then tested against the depiction of womanhood in the hadith literature, with special emphasis on Nahj al-Balagha. Contributing a fresh perspective on classical materials, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Islamic Studies, Women's Studies and Shi'i Studies.
Shari'A As Discourse by ISBN: 9780754698951Publication Date: 2010-03-28ShariOCya As Discourse exposes some of the various issues raised in relation to Muslim communities in Europe, by putting the intellectual and legal traditions into dialogue. It brings together a number of scholars to provide a valuable reference for all those interested in exploring how Muslims and non-Muslims view ShariOCya law."
Women under Islam by ISBN: 9780857720139Publication Date: 2011-04-30Is Islam inherently anti-women? In this groundbreaking work, Christina Jones-Pauly and Abir Dajani Tuqan examine the history and practice of Islamic law as it affects women throughout the world. They highlight the diversity of ways in which it has been interpreted, leading both to the progressive family-planning policies of Tunisia and the more conservative personal status laws of Egypt. Seeking to understand how a set of religious laws which initially empowered women subsequently became a tool for their oppression, they shift the debate away from whether Islamic law itself is misogynistic or not, and look instead at the contexts in which it has been applied, both in Arab and non-Arab cultures._x000D__x000D_The most important factor in determining whether court rulings are disadvantageous to women is not, they conclude, the conservativeness of the society, it is the institutions of that society, and in particular its pre-Islamic institutional history and the independence of its judiciary. In Pakistan, for example, the higher courts have been unable to resist popular and political pressure to criminalise extra-marital sexual relations, yet interpret the law themselves in a liberal way in keeping with the original spirit of the Qur'an and the Hadiths._x000D__x000D_The book also provides innovative insight into the application of Islamic law in countries where Muslims are the minority, exploring how the evolution of Sharia in South Africa's constitutionalist legal framework creates new possibilities for progressive interpretations._x000D__x000D_Interweaving legal scholarship and detailed on the ground case studies, Women Under Islam provides both a rich reference resource and new way of understanding gender politics in the Islamic world.
Women, Islam and International Law by ISBN: 9789047424758Publication Date: 2009-01-01Islam and women s human rights entertain an uneasy relationship. Much has been written on the subject. This volume addresses it from a new perspective. It attempts to define some basis for constructive dialogue and interaction in the context of international law and, more precisely, in the context of participation of many Muslim States in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Having discovered a constructive potential in both Islam and women s human rights, the author concentrates on the role which international law should play in promoting dialogue and constructive interaction. This is done mainly through analysis of the regime of reservations and of the practice of reservations developed in the context of Muslim States participation in the CEDAW. The basic thesis defended is the following: Islam as articulated in the practice of States and women s human rights, as reflected in international instruments, are both results of human activity. Their analysis in this study reveals more commonalities than one might expect. International law should be more attentive to their voices and more innovative in using these commonalities in order to promote constructive dialogue between them and thus help to improve the situation of women suffering from discrimination and inequalities."
Women Embracing Islam by ISBN: 0292713029Publication Date: 2006-08-01Many Westerners view Islam as a religion that restricts and subordinates women in both private and public life. Yet a surprising number of women in Western Europe and America are converting to Islam. What attracts these women to a belief system that is markedly different from both Western Christianity and Western secularism? What benefits do they gain by converting, and what are the costs? How do Western women converts live their new Islamic faith, and how does their conversion affect their families and communities? How do women converts transmit Islamic values to their children? These are some of the questions that Women Embracing Islam seeks to answer. In this vanguard study of gender and conversion to Islam, leading historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and theologians investigate why non-Muslim women in the United States, several European countries, and South Africa are converting to Islam. Drawing on extensive interviews with female converts, the authors explore the life experiences that lead Western women to adopt Islam, as well as the appeal that various forms of Islam, as well as the Nation of Islam, have for women. The authors find that while no single set of factors can explain why Western women are embracing Islamic faith traditions, some common motivations emerge. These include an attraction to Islam's high regard for family and community, its strict moral and ethical standards, and the rationality and spirituality of its theology, as well as a disillusionment with Christianity and with the unrestrained sexuality of so much of Western culture.
Muslim Women Activists in North America by ISBN: 9780292796614Publication Date: 2005-01-01Eighteen autobiographical essays by US and Canadian Muslim women who are active in fighting for social justice both within and beyond the Muslim community.
The Production of the Muslim Woman by ISBN: 0739109626Publication Date: 2005-03-11This study examines the ideological production of the North African Musim woman in the discourse of female Orientalism, French Psychoanalytic feminism, and Maghrebian nationalism and Islamic feminism.
Visible Histories, Disappearing Women by ISBN: 9780822342151Publication Date: 2008-04-25In Visible Histories, Disappearing Women, Mahua Sarkar examines how Muslim women in colonial Bengal came to be more marginalized than Hindu women in nationalist discourse and subsequent historical accounts. She also considers how their near-invisibility except as victims has underpinned the construction of the ideal citizen-subject in late colonial India. Through critical engagements with significant feminist and postcolonial scholarship, Sarkar maps out when and where Muslim women enter into the written history of colonial Bengal. She argues that the nation-centeredness of history as a discipline and the intellectual politics of liberal feminism have together contributed to the production of Muslim women as the oppressed, mute, and invisible "other" of the normative modern Indian subject. Drawing on extensive archival research and oral histories of Muslim women who lived in Calcutta and Dhaka in the first half of the twentieth century, Sarkar traces Muslim women as they surface and disappear in colonial, Hindu nationalist, and liberal Muslim writings, as well as in the memories of Muslim women themselves. The oral accounts provide both a rich source of information about the social fabric of urban Bengal during the final years of colonial rule and a glimpse of the kind of negotiations with stereotypes that even relatively privileged, middle-class Muslim women are still frequently obliged to make in India today. Sarkar concludes with some reflections on the complex links between past constructions of Muslim women, current representations, and the violence against them in contemporary India.- Mihrî Hatun by ISBN: 9780815635499Publication Date: 2017-11-15The early modern Ottoman poet Mihr#65533; Hatun (1460-1515) succeeded in drawing an admiring audience and considerable renown during a time when few women were accepted into the male-dominated intellectual circles. Her poetry collection is among the earliest bodies of women's writing in the Middle East and Islamicate literature, providing an exceptional vantage point on intellectual history. With this volume, Havlioglu not only gives readers access to this rare text but also investigates the factors that allowed Mihri to survive and thrive despite her clear departure from the cultural norms of the time. Placing the poet in the context of her era and environment, Havlioglu finds that the poet's dramatic, masterful performance and subversiveness are the very reasons for her endurance and acclaim in intellectual history. Mihri Hatun performed in a way that embraced her marginal position as a woman and leveraged it to her advantage. Havlioglu's astute and nuanced portrait gives readers a fascinating glimpse into the life of a woman poet in a highly gendered society and suggests that women have been part of intellectual history long before the modern period.
Islam, Gender and Social Change by ISBN: 019511356XPublication Date: 1997-12-11Places the effect of Muslim religious resurgence on women in its historical context, offers case studies of Muslim societies and argues against the stereotype of Muslim women as repressed, passive, and without initiative, whilst acknowledging the very real obstacles to women's initiatives in most of these societies.
Civil Society and Women Activists in the Middle East by ISBN: 9780857722508Publication Date: 2012-05-27In the Middle East, and in Egypt in particular, there has always been a tendency to accord complete supremacy to the authority and might of the state, and to see 'society' as a separate, powerless entity. However, after the uprisings which began in early 2011, this assumption was turned on its head. And it is the wide range of political activity beyond the remit of the official state where Wanda Krause locates a dynamic potential for political change from the bottom up. She looks in particular at the influential role of women's private voluntary organisations in shaping concepts of civil society and democracy, contextualizing their demands within a situation which sees the neglect of services and basic needs of the poor by the Egyptian state.Since the late 1970s, beginning with the Bread Riots, Egyptian unskilled and skilled labourers, factory workers and civil servants have carried out a number of strikes and demonstrations - many prompted by women. And in the twenty-first century, with the rumours that Hosni Mubarak would attempt to devolve power to his son, Gamal Mubarak, protests increased, culminating in the extraordinary scenes on Tahrir Square. Here, Krause explores the role of the female as the political actor in many of these calls for protest and reform, arguing that female activists are changing the face of Egyptian politics by instilling democratic values from the bottom up. Moreover, and as a surprise to many, it may not only be those who profess to be progressive, secular and liberal who are significant in this respect. By looking at the activities and women involved in both secular and 'Islamist' organizations, she offers a steadfast critique of the view that Islamic women activists are insignificant, 'backward' or 'uncivil', also pointing out the often-ignored contextual dimensions of secular feminist action.Krause's examination of women activists in Egypt today is vital for those interested in Middle East and Gender Studies, as well as those researching the wider issues of civil society and democratization.
Islam and Gender by ISBN: 0691058156Publication Date: 1999-12-05Following 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.
Modest Fashion by ISBN: 9780857722256Publication Date: 2013-05-30Modest dressing, both secular and religious, is a growing trend across the world, yet so far it has been given little serious attention and is rarely seen as fashion. Modest Fashion uniquely studies and addresses both the consumers and the producers of modest clothing. It examines the growing number of women who, for reasons of religion, faith or personal preference, decide to cover their bodies and dress in a way that satisfies their spiritual and stylistic requirements. These are women who are making fashionable the art of dressing modestly. Scholars and journalists, fashion designers and bloggers explore the emergence of a niche market for modest fashion and examine how this operates across and between faiths, and in relation to 'secular' dressers.- Muslima Theology by ISBN: 9783631628997Publication Date: 2013-07-10This pioneering volume defines the contours of the emerging engagements of Muslim women scholars from around the world with the authoritative interpretive traditions of Islam, classical and contemporary. Muslima theology, here broadly defined to encompass a range of interpretive strategies and perspectives arising from multiple social locations, interrogates Islamic scripture and other forms of religious discourse to empower Muslim women of faith to speak for themselves in the interests of gender justice. Contributions provide an overview of the field at this juncture-ranging from pioneering Muslim scriptural feminism to detailed analyses of legal and mystical texts by a new international cohort of Muslim women academics and activists. Contemporary female Muslim "constructivist" approaches articulate concerns with diversity, including race and religious pluralism, paralleling developments in womanist and mujerista readings of religious texts.
Alternative Islamic Discourses and Religious Authority by ISBN: 9781409441311Publication Date: 2013-12-11This book argues that the centre of gravity for alternative Islamic discourses will continue to shift from the Arabic-speaking 'heartland' towards the geographical peripheries of the Muslim world and expatriate Muslims in North America and Europe. This process has consequences for the question of authority among Muslims. In view of recent seismic shifts in the political constellation of the Middle East, the trends discussed in this book hold important clues for the possible direction of future developments in that part of the Muslim world.
Sex Work in Colonial Egypt : Women, Modernity and the Global Economy by ISBN: 9781788311038Publication Date: 2018-11-30In the early 20th century Cairo was a vibrant and booming global metropolis. The integration of Egypt into the global market had led to rapid urban growth and increased migration. As occupational prospects for women outside the family were limited, sex work became a prominent feature of the new modern city. However, the economic and social changes in Egypt ignited national anxieties about racial degeneration, social disorder and imperial decadence. Francesca Biancani argues here that this was a period of national crisis that became inscribed on the bodies on female sex workers. Based on a wide range of rare primary sources, including documents from court cases, reformist papers, police minutes and letters, Biancani examines the discourses around sex workers and shows how prostitution was understood in colonial Egypt. The book argues that from initially regulating and managing prostitution, local and colonial elites began to depict sex workers as a threat to the physical and moral welfare of the rising Egyptian nation. However, far from being a marginal activity, prostitution is shown to play a central role in the history of Egyptian nation-making. By exploring the interdependence of power and marginality, respectability and transgression, Biancani writes sex work and its practitioners back into the history of modern Egypt. The book is an original contribution to the global history of prostitution and a vital resource for scholars of Middle East Studies.- The Unforgettable Queens of Islam : Succession, Authority, Gender by ISBN: 9781107554894Publication Date: 2020-03-26In this landmark study, Shahla Haeri offers the extraordinary biographies of several Muslim women rulers and leaders who reached the apex of political systems of their times. Their stories illuminate the complex and challenging imperatives of dynastic succession, electoral competition and the stunning success they achieved in medieval Yemen and India, and modern Pakistan and Indonesia. The written history of Islam and the Muslim world is overwhelmingly masculine, having largely ignored women and their contributions until well into the 20th century. Religious and legal justifications have been systematically invoked to justify Muslim women's banishment from politics and public domains. Yet this patriarchal domination has not gone on without serious challenges by women - sporadic and exceptional though their participation in the battle of succession has been. The Unforgettable Queens of Islam highlights lives and legacies of a number of charismatic women engaged in fierce battles of succession, and their stories offer striking insights into the workings of political power in the Muslim world.
- Muslim Women in Law and SocietyISBN: 9780415418874Publication Date: 2007-12-19This is a timely translation of a seminal text on the role of women in Muslim society by the early 20th century thinker al-Taher al-Haddad. Considered as one of the first feminist works in Arab literature, this book will be of considerable interest to scholars of an early 'feminist' tract coming from a Muslim in Arab society.
Muslim Women in Law and Society by ISBN: 9780203938317Publication Date: 2007-11-29An extremely timely translation of a seminal text on the role of women in Muslim society by the early twentieth century thinker al Taher al-Haddad. Considered as one of the first feminist works in Arab literature, this book will be of considerable interest to scholars of an early "feminist" tract coming from a Muslim in Arab society. Awarded the 2008 "World Award of the President of the Republic of Tunisia for Islamic Studies"
Feminism and Islam by ISBN: 081479680XPublication Date: 1996-09-01In an age when Western feminism is continuously undergoing redefinition, the struggles of women in Muslim countries are often overlooked. This volume illustrates how women in Islamic societies have become more actively involved not only in learning their rights under the sharia (Islamic law) but in rereading this law to improve their status and gain increased equality and freedom. Surveying Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and Arab societies in general, the essays in feminism and Islam focus on such subjects as crimes of honor and the construction of gender in Arab societies; law and the desire for social control; women ad entrepreneurship; family legislation; and the political strategies of feminists in the Islam world.- Divine Words, Female Voices: Muslima explorations in comparative feminist theology by ISBN: 9780190653378Publication Date: 2018-10-15The relationship between Islam and feminism is complex. There are many Muslim scholars who fervently promote women's equality. At the same time, there is ambivalence regarding the general norms, terminology, and approaches of feminism and feminist theology. This ambivalence is in large part aproduct of various hegemonic, androcentric, and patriarchal discourses that seek to dictate legitimate and authoritative interpretations. These discourses not only fuel ambivalence, they also effectively obscure valuable possibilities related to interreligious feminist engagement. Divine Words, Female Voices is the follow-up to Jerusha Lamptey's 2014 book, Never Wholly Other, in which she introduced the idea of "Muslima" theology and applied it to the topic of religious diversity. In this new book, she extends her earlier arguments to contend that interreligious feministengagement is both a theologically valid endeavor and a vital resource for Muslim women scholars. She introduces comparative feminist theology as a method for overcoming challenges associated with interreligious feminist engagement, reorients comparative discussions to focus on the two "DivineWords" (the Qur'an and Jesus) and feminist theology, and uses this reorientation to examine intersections, discontinuities, and insights related to diverse theological topics. This book is distinctive in its responsiveness to calls for new approaches in Islamic feminist theology, its use of themethod of comparative theology, its focus on Muslim and Christian feminist theology in comparative analysis, and its constructive articulation of Muslima theological perspectives.
- Debating Sharia by ISBN: 9781442642621Publication Date: 2012-05-11When the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice announced it would begin offering Sharia-based services in Ontario, a subsequent provincial government review gave qualified support for religious arbitration. However, the ensuing debate inflamed the passions of a wide range of Muslim and non-Muslim groups, garnered worldwide attention, and led to a ban on religiously based family law arbitration in the province. Debating Sharia sheds light on how Ontario's Sharia debate of 2003-2006 exemplified contemporary concerns regarding religiosity in the public sphere and the place of Islam in Western nation states. Focusing on the legal ramifications of Sharia law in the context of rapidly changing Western liberal democracies, Debating Sharia approaches the issue from a variety of methodological perspectives, including policy and media analysis, fieldwork, feminist examinations of the portrayals of Muslim women, and theoretical examinations of religion, Sharia, and the law. This volume is an important read for those who grapple with ethnic and religio-cultural diversity while remaining committed to religious freedom and women's equality.
- Feminism in Islam by ISBN: 9781851685561Publication Date: 2009-02-01While many in the West regard feminism and Islam as a contradiction in terms, many Muslims in the East have perceived Western feminist forces in their midst as an assault upon their culture. In this career-spanning collection of influential essays, Margot Badran presents the feminisms that Muslim women have created, and examines Islamic and secular feminist ideologies side by side. Borne out of over two decades of work, this important volume combines essays from a variety of sources, ranging from those which originated as conference papers to those published in the popular press. Also including original material written specifically for this book, Feminism and Islam provides a unique and wide-ranging contribution to the field of Islam and gender studies. Margot Badran is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, US. She is currently Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Religion, Northwestern University, US. She is the author of Feminists, Islam and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt
Speaking in God's Name by ISBN: 1851682627Publication Date: 2001-08-27This challenging new book reviews the ethics at the heart of the Islamic legal system, and suggests that these laws have been misinterpreted by certain sources in an attempt to control women.- Shari'A As Discourse by ISBN: 9780754698951Publication Date: 2010-03-28ShariOCya As Discourse exposes some of the various issues raised in relation to Muslim communities in Europe, by putting the intellectual and legal traditions into dialogue. It brings together a number of scholars to provide a valuable reference for all those interested in exploring how Muslims and non-Muslims view ShariOCya law."
- Muslima Theology by ISBN: 9783631628997Publication Date: 2013-07-10This pioneering volume defines the contours of the emerging engagements of Muslim women scholars from around the world with the authoritative interpretive traditions of Islam, classical and contemporary. Muslima theology, here broadly defined to encompass a range of interpretive strategies and perspectives arising from multiple social locations, interrogates Islamic scripture and other forms of religious discourse to empower Muslim women of faith to speak for themselves in the interests of gender justice. Contributions provide an overview of the field at this juncture-ranging from pioneering Muslim scriptural feminism to detailed analyses of legal and mystical texts by a new international cohort of Muslim women academics and activists. Contemporary female Muslim "constructivist" approaches articulate concerns with diversity, including race and religious pluralism, paralleling developments in womanist and mujerista readings of religious texts.
- Alternative Islamic Discourses and Religious Authority by ISBN: 9781409441311Publication Date: 2013-12-11This book argues that the centre of gravity for alternative Islamic discourses will continue to shift from the Arabic-speaking 'heartland' towards the geographical peripheries of the Muslim world and expatriate Muslims in North America and Europe. This process has consequences for the question of authority among Muslims. In view of recent seismic shifts in the political constellation of the Middle East, the trends discussed in this book hold important clues for the possible direction of future developments in that part of the Muslim world.
Woman's Identity and the Hadith Rethinking the Sunnah by ISBN: 9781472446787Publication Date: 2015-10-28This book comprehensively contrasts Hadith with the Qur`an in order to uncover some of the unjust practices by Muslims concerning women and gender issues. Using specific examples the author argues that the human rights and the human development of Muslim women will not progress in a meaningful and sustainable manner until the Hadith is re-examined in a fresh new approach from within the Islamic framework, shifting the discourse in understanding Islam from a dogmatic religious law to a religio-moral rational worldview.- Shariah : what everyone needs to know by Call Number: KBP144 .E87 2018ISBN: 9780199325054Publication Date: 2018-04-11Sharia is by now a term that most Americans and Europeans recognize, though few really understand what it means. Often portrayed as a medieval system used by religious zealots to oppress women and deny human rights, conservative politicians, media commentators, and hardline televangelistsstoke fear by promoting the idea that Muslims want to impose a repressive Sharia rule in America and Europe. Despite the breadth of this propaganda, a majority of Muslims - men and women - support Sharia as a source of law. In fact, for many centuries Sharia has functioned for Muslims as a positivesource of guidance, providing a moral compass for individuals and society. This critical new book by John L. Esposito and Natana Delong-Bas aims to serve as a guide for what everybody needs to know in the conversation about Sharia, responding to misunderstandings and distortions, and offeringanswers to questions about the origin, nature, and content of Sharia.
Islamic Divorce in North America by ISBN: 9780199753918Publication Date: 2012-04-30There is increasing attention among policy-makers and the public to the role of shari'a in the everyday lives of Western Muslims, raising negative associations and public fears among their American and Canadian neighbors. The most common way North American Muslims relate to shari'a is in theirobservance of Islamic marriage and divorce rituals; recourse to traditional Islamic marriage and, to a lesser extent, divorce is widespread. In the course of her research, Julie Macfarlane conducted hundreds of interviews with Muslim couples, and her book describes how their Islamic marriage anddivorce processes are used in North America, and what they mean to those who abide by them. The picture that emerges is of an idiosyncratic private ordering system, dominated by imams and other community leaders, which reflects a wide range of attitudes towards contemporary family values and changes in gender roles. The emergence of a western shari'a challenges readers to consider how tofind the right balance between state commitment to universal norms and formal equality, and the protection of religious freedom expressed in private religious and cultural practices.
- ISBN: 9780429341151
Muslim Women in Contemporary North America by ISBN: 9780429341151Publication Date: 2022-11-29Exploring controversies and challenging clichés, Muslim Women in Contemporary North America is a provocative study of how strongly held and divergent opinions, values, and beliefs, as well as misconceptions, overgeneralizations, and political agendas pertaining to Muslim women in the region, enter the public frame of reference. Interrogating contested topics in a series of case studies from both Canada and the United States, this book probes below the surface in pursuit of deeper understanding and more productive dialogue. Chapters analyse controversies over "clash" literature, dissident reformists, female religious leadership, veils, and the nature of emancipation in a compelling examination of the ways in which "Muslim", "American", and "Canadian" identities and values are being defined, differentiated, and projected. By pinpointing both sources of dissonance and unexpected patterns of resonance among complex, composite, and at times overlapping identity constellations, this book uncovers the impact of controversies on broader cultural negotiations in the United States and Canada. Transforming controversy and cliché into genuine conversation, Muslim Women in Contemporary North America is an invaluable resource for scholars and students in the fields of Islamic and Muslim Studies, Gender Studies, International Relations, Political Science, and Sociology.
Women of the Nation: between black protest and Sunni Islam by Call Number: afr HQ1170 .G53 2014ISBN: 9780814769959Publication Date: 2014-07-11With vocal public figures such as Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, and Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam often appears to be a male-centric religious movement, and over 60 years of scholarship have perpetuated that notion. Yet, women have been pivotal in the NOI's development, playing a major role in creating the public image that made it appealing and captivating. Women of the Nation draws on oral histories and interviews with approximately 100 women across several cities to provide an overview of women's historical contributions and their varied experiences of the NOI, including both its continuing community under Farrakhan and its offshoot into Sunni Islam under Imam W.D. Mohammed. The authors examine how women have interpreted and navigated the NOI's gender ideologies and practices, illuminating the experiences of African-American, Latina, and Native American women within the NOI and their changing roles within this patriarchal movement. The book argues that the Nation of Islam experience for women has been characterized by an expression of Islam sensitive to American cultural messages about race and gender, but also by gender and race ideals in the Islamic tradition. It offers the first exhaustive study of women's experiences in both the NOI and the W.D. Mohammed community.
Women, Art, and Literature in the Iranian Diaspora by ISBN: 9780815636557Publication Date: 2019-05-09Does the study of aesthetics have tangible effects in the real world? Does examining the work of diaspora writers and artists change our view of "the Other"? In this thoughtful book, Ebrahimi argues that an education in the humanities is as essential as one in politics and ethics, critically training the imagination toward greater empathy. Despite the surge in Iranian memoirs, their contributions to debunking an abstract idea of terror and their role in encouraging democratic thinking remain understudied. In examining creative work by women of Iranian descent, Ebrahimi argues that Shirin Neshat, Marjane Satrapi, and Parsua Bashi make the Other familiar and break a cycle of reactionary xenophobia. These authors, instead of relying on indignation, build imaginative bridges in their work that make it impossible to blame one evil, external enemy. Ebrahimi explores both classic and hybrid art forms, including graphic novels and photo-poetry, to advocate for the importance of aesthetics to inform and influence a global community. Drawing on the theories of Rancière, Butler, Arendt, and Levinas, Ebrahimi identifies the ways in which these works give a human face to the Other, creating the space and language to imagine a new political and ethical landscape.- From Victims to Suspects by ISBN: 9780300230420Publication Date: 2019-02-26Drawing on interviews and examples from across the globe, this book tackles the shifting narratives surrounding Muslim women Once regarded as passive victims waiting to be rescued, Muslim women are now widely regarded as arbiters of "terror" and a potential threat to be kept under control. Drawing on interviews and examples from around the world including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Europe, and North America, Shakira Hussein shows how this shift in attitude has taken place and how it impacts feminism, multiculturalism, race, and religion on a global scale. She argues that alongside the fear of Islamic terrorism is a growing fear of Islam as a cultural hazard that is undermining Western society from within. Muslim women, the transmitters of cultural practices, are frequently seen to play a key role in this. Hussein's work makes for a compelling read, offering a unique perspective on what it means to be a Muslim woman post-9/11.
Threading My Prayer Rug by ISBN: 9781628726633Publication Date: 2016-07-05Named one of Booklist's Top 10 Diverse Nonfiction Books of 2017 Now in paperback, a timely meditation on being Muslim in America today. Named on Booklist's Top Ten Religion and Spirituality Books of 2016, Threading My Prayer Rug is a richly textured reflection on what it is to be a Muslim in America. It is also the luminous story of many journeys: from Pakistan to the United States in an arranged marriage that becomes a love match lasting forty-five years; from secular Muslim in an Islamic society to devout Muslim in a society ignorant of Islam, and from liberal to conservative to American Muslim; from bride to mother; and from an immigrant intending to stay two years to an American citizen, business executive, grandmother, and tireless advocate for interfaith understanding. Beginning with a sweetly funny, moving account of her arranged marriage, the author undercuts stereotypes and offers the refreshing view of an American life through Muslim eyes. Sabeeha was doing interfaith work for Imam Feisal A. Rauf, the driving force behind the Muslim community center near Ground Zero, when the backlash began. She recounts what that experience revealed about American society and in a new preface discusses Islam in America in the time of Trump.
Being Muslim: a cultural history of women of color in American Islam by Call Number: Olin HQ1170 .C486 2018ISBN: 9781479850600Publication Date: 2018-06-26An exploration of twentieth and twenty-first century U.S. Muslim womanhood that centers the lived experience of women of color For Sylvia Chan-Malik, Muslim womanhood is constructed through everyday and embodied acts of resistance, what she calls affective insurgency. In negotiating the histories of anti-Blackness, U.S. imperialism, and women's rights of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Being Muslim explores how U.S. Muslim women's identities are expressions of Islam as both Black protest religion and universal faith tradition. Through archival images, cultural texts, popular media, and interviews, the author maps how communities of American Islam became sites of safety, support, spirituality, and social activism, and how women of color were central to their formation. By accounting for American Islam's rich histories of mobilization and community, Being Muslim brings insight to the resistance that all Muslim women must engage in the post-9/11 United States. From the stories that she gathers, Chan-Malik demonstrates the diversity and similarities of Black, Arab, South Asian, Latina, and multiracial Muslim women, and how American understandings of Islam have shifted against the evolution of U.S. white nationalism over the past century. In borrowing from the lineages of Black and women-of-color feminism, Chan-Malik offers us a new vocabulary for U.S. Muslim feminism, one that is as conscious of race, gender, sexuality, and nation, as it is region and religion.
A Quiet Revolution by ISBN: 9780300170955Publication Date: 2011-04-29In Cairo in the 1940s, Leila Ahmed was raised by a generation of women who never dressed in the veils and headscarves their mothers and grandmothers had worn. To them, these coverings seemed irrelevant to both modern life and Islamic piety. Today, however, the majority of Muslim women throughout the Islamic world again wear the veil. Why, Ahmed asks, did this change take root so swiftly, and what does this shift mean for women, Islam, and the West? When she began her study, Ahmed assumed that the veil's return indicated a backward step for Muslim women worldwide. What she discovered, however, in the stories of British colonial officials, young Muslim feminists, Arab nationalists, pious Islamic daughters, American Muslim immigrants, violent jihadists, and peaceful Islamic activists, confounded her expectations. Ahmed observed that Islamism, with its commitments to activism in the service of the poor and in pursuit of social justice, is the strain of Islam most easily and naturally merging with western democracies' own tradition of activism in the cause of justice and social change. It is often Islamists, even more than secular Muslims, who are at the forefront of such contemporary activist struggles as civil rights and women's rights. Ahmed's surprising conclusions represent a near reversal of her thinking on this topic. Richly insightful, intricately drawn, and passionately argued, this absorbing story of the veil's resurgence, from Egypt through Saudi Arabia and into the West, suggests a dramatically new portrait of contemporary Islam.
I Speak for Myself by ISBN: 9781935952008Publication Date: 2011-05-17Muslim American women are the subject of endless discussions regarding their role in society, their veils as symbols of oppression or of freedom, their identity, their patriotism, their womanhood. Yet the voices and life experiences of Muslim American women themselves are rarely heard in the loud rhetoric surrounding the question of Muslims in America. Finally, inI Speak for Myself, 40 American women under the age of 40, share their experiences of their lives as Muslim women in America. While their commonality is faith and citizenship, their voices and their messages are very different. Readers ofI Speak for Myself are presented with a kaleidoscope of stories, artfully woven together around the central idea of limitlessness and individuality. A common theme linking these intimate self-portraits will be the way each woman uniquely defies labeling, simply by defining for herself what it means to be American and Muslim and female. Each personal story is a contribution to the larger narrative of life stories and life work of a new generation of Muslim women. There are approximately six million Muslims living in the United States and over one billion around the world. While the events of 9/11 certainly engaged Americans with the religion of Islam, many enduring stereotypes continue to belittle the Muslim American experience; this often leads to a monolithic interpretation of Islam. Such a treatment is especially inappropriate when reflecting on the Muslim American identity, which is by far one of the most culturally, ethnically, and socially diverse of any in the Islamic world. Women of the Muslim community in America could be described as both patriots and practitioners (of faith). Their experiences call for a body of literature that reflects how they celebrate and live Islam in distinctive ways. In the wake of the current rising tide of Islamophobia (seeTime Magazine, Aug. 30, 2010),I Speak for Myself is a must read for Americans seeking understanding of Islam from young women who were all born in the USA.
Books Addressing Muslims or Islam in the United States (1965-2022) (Bibliography) [Aziz, Sahar F. and Burress, Cynthia and Hankins, Rebecca, Books Addressing Muslims or Islam in the United States (1965-2022) (Bibliography) (March 1, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2734400].
Windows of Faith by ISBN: 081562851XPublication Date: 2000-01-01These essays by Islamic women scholars in the USA give voice to and are evidence of the growing network of Muslim women involved with the issues of women's human rights through scholarship activism. It brings together critical arguments for the fair treatment of women.
American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism by ISBN: 9780292735552Publication Date: 2012-04-01Following the events of September 11, 2001, American Muslims found themselves under unprecedented scrutiny. Muslim communities in the United States suffered from negative representations of their religion, but they also experienced increased interest in aspects of their faith and cultures. They seized the opportunity to shape the intellectual contribution of American Muslims to contemporary Muslim thought as never before. Muslim women in particular--often assumed to be silenced, oppressed members of their own communities--challenged stereotypes through their writing, seeking to express what it means to be a Muslim woman in America and carrying out intra-Muslim debates about gender roles and women's participation in society. Hammer looks at the work of significant female American Muslim writers, scholars, and activists, using their writings as a lens for a larger discussion of Muslim intellectual production in America and beyond. Centered on the controversial women-led Friday prayer in March 2005, Hammer uses this event and its aftermath to address themes of faith, community, and public opinion. Tracing the writings of American Muslim women since 1990, the author covers an extensive list of authors, including Amina Wadud, Leila Ahmed, Asma Barlas, Riffat Hassan, Mohja Kahf, Azizah al-Hibri, Asra Normani, and Asma Gull Hasan. Hammer deftly examines each author's writings, demonstrating that the debates that concern American Muslim women are at the heart of modern Muslim debates worldwide. While gender is the catalyst for Hammer's study, her examination of these women's intellectual output touches on themes central to contemporary Islam: authority, tradition, Islamic law, justice, and authenticity.
Nomad by ISBN: 9781439157312Publication Date: 2010-05-18Hirsi Ali tells the stirring story of her search for a new life in America in this vivid philosophical memoir, picking up where INFIDEL left off.- Islamic Divorce in North America by ISBN: 9780199753918Publication Date: 2012-04-30There is increasing attention among policy-makers and the public to the role of shari'a in the everyday lives of Western Muslims, raising negative associations and public fears among their American and Canadian neighbors. The most common way North American Muslims relate to shari'a is in theirobservance of Islamic marriage and divorce rituals; recourse to traditional Islamic marriage and, to a lesser extent, divorce is widespread. In the course of her research, Julie Macfarlane conducted hundreds of interviews with Muslim couples, and her book describes how their Islamic marriage anddivorce processes are used in North America, and what they mean to those who abide by them. The picture that emerges is of an idiosyncratic private ordering system, dominated by imams and other community leaders, which reflects a wide range of attitudes towards contemporary family values and changes in gender roles. The emergence of a western shari'a challenges readers to consider how tofind the right balance between state commitment to universal norms and formal equality, and the protection of religious freedom expressed in private religious and cultural practices.
- The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam by Call Number: Olin BP170.5.W55 W55 2010ISBN: 9780802118875Publication Date: 2010-06-01The extraordinary story of an all-American girl's conversion to Islam and her ensuing romance with a young Egyptian man, The Butterfly Mosque is a stunning articulation of a Westerner embracing the Muslim world. When G. Willow Wilson--already an accomplished writer on modern religion and the Middle East at just twenty-seven--leaves her atheist parents in Denver to study at Boston University, she enrolls in an Islamic Studies course that leads to her shocking conversion to Islam and sends her on a fated journey across continents and into an uncertain future. She settles in Cairo where she teaches English and submerges herself in a culture based on her adopted religion. And then she meets Omar, a passionate young man with a mild resentment of the Western influences in his homeland. They fall in love, entering into a daring relationship that calls into question the very nature of family, belief, and tradition. Torn between the secular West and Muslim East, Willow records her intensely personal struggle to forge a "third culture" that might accommodate her own values without compromising the friends and family on both sides of the divide.
General Islamic eBooks (Online)
For More Titles: Women in Islam / Women (Islamic Law) / Muslim Women / Islamic & gender / Islamic Dress Code / Feminism & Islam/ Sex Roles, Islam ...
The Cambridge History of Islam by
ISBN: 9780521219464
Publication Date: 1978-09-07
First published in 1970, The Cambridge History of Islam is a most comprehensive and ambitious collaborative survey of Islamic history and civilization. On publication it was welcomed as a work useful both for reference and reading, for the general reader, student and specialist alike. It has now been reprinted, with corrections, and for ease of handling the original two hardcover volumes have each been divided into two separate paperbacks.
Islam: A Very Short Introduction by Malise Ruthven
New York : Oxford University Press, 1997.
ISBN: 9780191540110
"In this thoroughly revised new edition, Malise Ruthven offers a balance, compact, and reliable overview of Islam. An internationally recognized authority on Islam, Ruthven offers essential insights into this major world religion, examining such issues as why Islam has such major divisions between movements such as the Shi'ites, the Sunnis, and the Wahhabis, and the central importance of the Shar'ia (Islamic law) in Islamic life. He also provides fresh perspectives on contemporary questions: Why is the greatest Jihad (holy war) now against the enemies of Islam, rather than the struggle against evil? Can women find fulfillment in Islamic societies? How must Islam adapt as it confronts the modern world?"
An Introduction to Islam in the 21st Century by
ISBN: 9781118273920
Chichester, West Sussex ; Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
"An Introduction to Islam in the 21st Century provides an engaging depiction of Islam as a living religion. Exploring Islam's historical context and core elements of the tradition, the authors provide a global perspective that captures the diversity of Islam in different regions and countries."
Understanding Islam / by . Publication Date: 2007-02-22. ISBN: 9781906716875
"Islam can be one of the most misunderstood religions. For some people it is a religion of war, while for the others it is a religion of peace. So there is a great need for an academic and sympathetic understanding of Islam. The author introduces Islam in its many dimensions covering the main historical, theological, practical, ethical, spiritual, social, and global themes. The bed-rock of Islam is the unity of God based on the Qur'anic revelation. But on this foundation a wide diversity of approaches and understandings have been built, ranging from the theological, philosophical, and Sufistic to the fundamentalist, traditionalist, modernist, and post-modernist of recent times. The book presents Islam from a mainstream and moderate perspective."
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A Quiet Revolution byISBN: 0300170955Publication Date: 2011-04-29In Cairo in the 1940s, Leila Ahmed was raised by a generation of women who never dressed in the veils and headscarves their mothers and grandmothers had worn. To them, these coverings seemed irrelevant to both modern life and Islamic piety. Today, however, the majority of Muslim women throughout the Islamic world again wear the veil. Why, Ahmed asks, did this change take root so swiftly, and what does this shift mean for women, Islam, and the West? When she began her study, Ahmed assumed that the veil's return indicated a backward step for Muslim women worldwide. What she discovered, however, in the stories of British colonial officials, young Muslim feminists, Arab nationalists, pious Islamic daughters, American Muslim immigrants, violent jihadists, and peaceful Islamic activists, confounded her expectations. Ahmed observed that Islamism, with its commitments to activism in the service of the poor and in pursuit of social justice, is the strain of Islam most easily and naturally merging with western democracies' own tradition of activism in the cause of justice and social change. It is often Islamists, even more than secular Muslims, who are at the forefront of such contemporary activist struggles as civil rights and women's rights. Ahmed's surprising conclusions represent a near reversal of her thinking on this topic. Richly insightful, intricately drawn, and passionately argued, this absorbing story of the veil's resurgence, from Egypt through Saudi Arabia and into the West, suggests a dramatically new portrait of contemporary Islam.
Feminists, Islam and Nation by ISBN: 069103706XPublication Date: 1994-12-04The emergence and evolution of Egyptian feminism is an integral, but previously untold, part of the history of modern Egypt. Drawing upon a wide range of women's sources--memoirs, letters, essays, journalistic articles, fiction, treatises, and extensive oral histories--Margot Badran shows how Egyptian women assumed agency and in so doing subverted and refigured the conventional patriarchal order. Unsettling a common claim that "feminism is Western" and dismantling the alleged opposition between feminism and Islam, the book demonstrates how the Egyptian feminist movement in the first half of this century both advanced the nationalist cause and worked within the parameters of Islam.
Islam by ISBN: 081296618XPublication Date: 2002-08-06No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular imagination as an extreme faith that promotes terrorism, authoritarian government, female oppression, and civil war. In a vital revision of this narrow view of Islam and a distillation of years of thinking and writing about the subject, Karen Armstrong’s short history demonstrates that the world’s fastest-growing faith is a much more complex phenomenon than its modern fundamentalist strain might suggest.
What Is Islam? by ISBN: 0691164185Publication Date: 2015-11-17What is Islam? How do we grasp a human and historical phenomenon characterized by such variety and contradiction? What is "Islamic" about Islamic philosophy or Islamic art? Should we speak of Islam or of islams? Should we distinguish the Islamic (the religious) from the Islamicate (the cultural)? Or should we abandon "Islamic" altogether as an analytical term? In What Is Islam?, Shahab Ahmed presents a bold new conceptualization of Islam that challenges dominant understandings grounded in the categories of "religion" and "culture" or those that privilege law and scripture. He argues that these modes of thinking obstruct us from understanding Islam, distorting it, diminishing it, and rendering it incoherent. What Is Islam? formulates a new conceptual language for analyzing Islam. It presents a new paradigm of how Muslims have historically understood divine revelation--one that enables us to understand how and why Muslims through history have embraced values such as exploration, ambiguity, aestheticization, polyvalence, and relativism, as well as practices such as figural art, music, and even wine drinking as Islamic. It also puts forward a new understanding of the historical constitution of Islamic law and its relationship to philosophical ethics and political theory. A book that is certain to provoke debate and significantly alter our understanding of Islam, What Is Islam? reveals how Muslims have historically conceived of and lived with Islam as norms and truths that are at once contradictory yet coherent.
Writing the Feminine by ISBN: 1860646972Publication Date: 2002-06-29This book questions the conventional wisdom of the Mediterranean Muslim woman as a passive victim of the tyranny of religion, society, and male relatives. These original essays build on a range of experiences from varied regions and periods--from medieval love poetry to popular literary sources and fatwas and legal analyses--bear witness to the fact that individual women of all social classes play pivotal roles in both the private and public realms of Arab society.
Picturing Islam by ISBN: 9781405129589Publication Date: 2010-01-11Picturing Islam: Art and Ethics in a Muslim Lifeworld explores issues of religion, nationalism, ethnicity, and globalization through the life and work of the prominent contemporary Indonesian artist Abdul Djalil Pirous. Presents a unique addition to the anthropology of art and religion Demonstrates the impact of Islam, ethnicity, nationalism, and globalization on the work and life of an internationally recognized postcolonial artist Weaves together visual and narrative materials to tell an engrossing story of a cosmopolitan Muslim artist Looks at contemporary Islamic art and the way it has been produced in the world's largest Muslim nation, Indonesia
Scholars and Scholarship on Women and Islamic Cultures - A Study of Ph.D. Dissertations: 1960–2002. The focus of the project was to compose as complete a list as possible with author, title, university, topic, date of completion, and abstract of each thesis.
ProQuest dissertations & theses global Searchable and browsable database of dissertations and theses from around the world, spanning from 1743 to the present day. It also offers full text for graduate works added since 1997, along with selected full text for works written prior to 1997. It contains a significant amount of new international dissertations and theses both in citations and in full text. Designated as an official offsite repository for the U.S. Library of Congress, PQDT Global offers comprehensive historic and ongoing coverage for North American works and significant and growing international coverage from a multiyear program of expanding partnerships with international universities and national associations.
General Islamic Studies Theses
- Access the theses online [Digital islam: Theses on EThOS] Theses via EthOS (UK) Full-Text Doctoral Dissertations on Middle East and Islamic Studies Available Free. Free download of theses after registering (free). "Almost all UK universities make their theses available through the Service."Scholars and Scholarship on Women and Islamic Cultures - A Study of Ph.D. Dissertations: 1960–2002
- Dissertation Abstracts Cornell's Middle East & Islamic Studies Collection
- Supreme Council of Universities (Egypt). Egyptian Universities’ Libraries Consortium. Theses & "Draft Theses"
- Masters and PhD of Egyptian researchers
- Theses under study in Egyptian universities
- Dissertations - Middle East Studies - SAIS Research Guides
- UNESCO Clearinghouse of Electronic Theses and Dissertations "A database of institutions (universities, libraries, computing centers, publishing houses, etc. with ETD [electronic theses and dissertations] projects), experts in the field of ETD, and technical and educational materials availabe on the Web to support and disseminate ETD." http://www.eduserver.de/unesco/
- UNESCO Guide for Electronic Theses and Dissertations For institutions interested in producing e-theses. "a resource for graduate students who are writing theses or dissertations, for graduate faculty who want to mentor ETD authors, for graduate deans who want to initiate ETD programs, and for IT administrators at universities." http://etdguide.org/
- Center for Research Libraries. Foreign Doctoral Dissertations Database CRL, in Chicago, has more than 750,000 foreign doctoral dissertations (from the U.K., France, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, South Africa, etc.). Members may borrow dissertations. Description of program Use the Keyword (or Author, Institution, Title, etc.) search. http://www-apps.crl.edu/catalog/dissertationSearch.asp
- Dissertation Reviews Founded in 2010, Dissertation Reviews is a site that features overviews of recently defended, unpublished doctoral dissertations in a wide variety of disciplines across the Humanities and Social Sciences. Offers readers a glimpse of each discipline’s immediate present by focusing on the window of time between dissertation defense and first book publication. Each review provides a summary of the author’s main arguments, the historiographic genealogy in which the author operates, and the main source bases for his or her research. The reviews are also anticipatory, making educated assessments of how the research will advance or challenge our understanding of major issues in the field when it is revised and published in the future. Dissertation Reviews also features reviews of and guides to archives, libraries, databases, and other collections where such dissertation research was conducted, to help scholars improve their ability to undertake current and future research.
- Find Open Access Dissertations and Theses
- American Doctoral Dissertations, 1933-1955 is a free database providing access to the only comprehensive record of dissertations accepted by American universities during that time period, the print index Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities. Containing nearly 100,000 citations, American Doctoral Dissertations, 1933-1955, provides full page images of the original print index, and may be searched by author, title, subject and university.
The database was created with the generous support of the H. W. Wilson Foundation and the Congregational Library & Archives in Boston.
Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities was an index complied annually for the National Research Council and The American Council of Learned Societies by the Association of Research Libraries. It was published by the H. W. Wilson Company." -
For other aggregations of open access dissertations see:
- EThOS - Electronic Theses Online Service
- DART-Europe E-theses Portal
- List of sources of the scientific search engine BASE
- List of Institutional Repositories
General
List of books and articles about Women in Islam
"Mapping Women Writers in the Mahjar" -- StoryMap from the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at NC State.
Arab Family Studies by ISBN: 9780815635598Publication Date: 2018-05-31Family remains the most powerful social idiom and one of the most powerful social structures throughout the Arab world. To engender love of nation among its citizens, national movements portray the nation as a family. To motivate loyalty, political leaders frame themselves as fathers, mothers, brothers, or sisters to their clients, parties, or the citizenry. To stimulate production, economic actors evoke the sense of duty and mutual commitment of family obligation. To sanctify their edicts, clerics wrap religion in the moralities of family and family in the moralities of religion. Social and political movements, from the most secular to the most religious, pull on the tender strings of family love to recruit and bind their members to each other. To call someone family is to offer them almost the highest possible intimacy, loyalty, rights, reciprocities, and dignity. In recognizing the significance of the concept of family, this state-of-the-art literature review captures the major theories, methods, and case studies carried out on Arab families over the past century. The book offers a country-by-country critical assessment of the available scholarship on Arab families. Sixteen chapters focus on specific countries or groups of countries; seven chapters offer examinations of the literature on key topical issues. Joseph's volume provides an indispensable resource to researchers and students, and advances Arab family studies as a critical independent field of scholarship.
American Authors
Borrowing Primary Sources from CRL
CORNELL is a member of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), an international consortium of university, college, and independent research libraries. CRL acquires and preserves newspapers, journals, documents, archives, and other traditional and digital resources from a global network of sources. Most of the materials acquired are from outside the United States, and many are from the emerging regions of the world: Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Latin America. University of Iowa faculty and students may borrow primary source materials from CRL for extended periods. To identify materials of interest, search the CRL Catalog and then fill out a local "Borrow Direct, Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and Material Requests" for each title you wish to borrow.