Women and Islam: Myths, Apologies, and the Limits of Feminist Critique
Ibtissam Bouachrine
Language: English
Pages: 162
ISBN: 0739194054
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Muslim women of all ages, economic status, educational backgrounds, sexual orientations, and from different parts of historically Muslim countries suffer the kinds of atrocities that violate common understandings of human rights and are normally denounced as criminal or pathological, yet these actions are sustained because they uphold some religious doctrine or some custom blessed by local traditions. Ironically, while instances of abuse meted out to women and even female children are routine, scholarship about Muslim women in the post 9/11 era has rarely focused attention on them, preferring to speak of women’s agency and resistance. Too few scholars are willing to tell the complicated, and at times harrowing, stories of Muslim women's lives. Women and Islam: Myths, Apologies, and the Limits of Feminist Critique radically rethinks the celebratory discourse constructed around Muslim women’s resistance. It shows instead the limits of such resistance and the restricted agency given women within Islamic societies. The book does not center on a single historical period. Rather, it is organized as a response to five questions that have been central to upholding the 'resistance discourse': What is the impact of the myth of al-Andalus on a feminist critique? What is the feminist utility of Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism? Is Islam compatible with a feminist agenda? To what extent can Islamic institutions, such as the veil, be liberating for women? Will the current Arab uprisings yield significant change for Muslim women? Through examination of these core questions, Bouachrine calls for a shift in the paradigm of discourse about feminism in the Muslim world.
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Andalusi society and in Andalusi men’s imagination, it is also a myth that has dangerous implications for Muslim women today as it stands between them and the possibility of a meaningful reform. The following chapter addresses falsehoods about the place of Muslim women in Western representations. While women’s agency is exaggerated in representations by Muslim writers and artists, Western representations, on the other hand, are seen as constructing an image of a passive Muslim woman at the mercy.
Marginalized Islamist parties to access political power, the new governments are far from establishing gender equality in Muslim societies. Indeed, these upheavals reveal just how deeply entrenched patriarchy is in the Muslim psyche. Even though this study focuses on the representations and experiences of Muslim women within Muslim societies, it also has some practical ramifications for the West’s relationship with predominantly Muslim countries. In today’s interconnected world, the deaths of.
Namely, “Her economic independence; her marriage overture, apparently without a male guardian to act as intermediary; her marriage to a man many years younger than herself; and her monogamous marriage all reflect jahiliyya rather than Islamic practice.” 19 Ahmed contrasts the liberties that Khadija enjoyed as a woman who spent most of her life before Islam with the situation of Aisha, Muhammad’s youngest wife, who was born to Muslim parents and married Muhammad when she was nine years old. Unlike.
(www.mithly.net) no longer exists. Conclusion Focusing primarily on the western part of the Mediterranean, these pages have argued that many celebrated myths and apologies actually stand between Muslim women and significant reform. This book has endeavored to show that while Western imperialism and colonialism are often blamed for the status of Muslim women and men, reform-minded initiatives and agendas cannot hold the West solely responsible for Muslim women’s precarious condition and.
Was also the scene of constant military conflict. These wars had an impact on all aspects of Andalusi life, including literary production and, in particular, the ways in which men portrayed women. One of these, which has fascinated academics and non-academics alike, is the proliferation of writing about sex in the medieval Muslim world, and in al-Andalus and North Africa in particular. Take for example the following kharja in which the feminine poetic voice explicitly refers to her preferred.