scholarly journals The Rights of Muslim Women in the Middle East: A Pathfinder

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren E. Schroeder

This annotated pathfinder is designed to serve as a guide for those who wish to learn about the legal and social situation of Muslim women in the region of the Middle East, but who do not have a great amount of advanced knowledge concerning the topic. It is meant to serve as an organized starting point from which to begin further research, and to provide a context for the current status of Muslim women's rights in the Middle East. A wide variety of types of materials are included, from books to reports to treaties.

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lila Abu-Lughod

The ethical and political dilemmas posed by the construction and international circulation of discourses on women's rights in the Middle East are formidable. The plight of “Muslim women” has long occupied a special place in the Western political imagination, whether in colonial officials' dedication to saving them from barbaric practices or development projects devoted to empowering them. In the past fifteen years or so, through a series of international conferences and the efforts of feminist activists, women's rights have come to be framed successfully as universal human rights. Building on the U.N. conferences on women that started in 1975 and led to other initiatives, the appropriate arena of women's rights work has been redefined from the national to the international.


2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohit De

This article investigates the formation of a political consensus between conservative ulama, Muslim reformers, nationalist politicians and women's organisations, which led to the enactment of the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act in 1939. The Act was a radical piece of social legislation that gave South Asian Muslim women greater rights for divorce than those enjoyed by other women in India and Britain. Instead of placing women's rights and Islamic law as opposed to each other, the legislation employed a heuristic that guaranteed women's rights by applying Islamic law, allowing Muslim politicians, ulama and women's groups to find common ground on an Islamic modernity. By interrogating the legislative process and the rhetorical positions employed to achieve this consensus, the paper hopes to map how the women's question was being negotiated anew in the space created in the legislatures. The legislative debate over family law redefined the boundaries of the public and the private, and forced nationalists to reconsider the ‘women's question’. The transformation of Islamic law through secular legislation also gave greater licence to the courts in their interpretation, and widened the schism between traditional practitioners of fiqh and modern lawyers.


Hawwa ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 152-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annie Bunting

AbstractBy analysing the proposals contained in the report, “Promoting Women’s Rights Through Sharia in Northern Nigeria,” which was published by the Centre for Islamic Legal Studies at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria in 2005, this paper explores the complexities and consequences of a rights strategy grounded in “an authentic understanding of Sharia.” The paper argues that this strategy may further constrain the discourses of debate for Muslim women in northern Nigeria. It also discusses how the strategy privatizes responsibility for poverty eradication, and how it ignores competing languages of social change, including Nigerian and international women’s rights.


Author(s):  
Carmen Vidal Valiña

<p><strong>Resumen</strong></p><p>Los feminismos islámicos nacieron en los años noventa del siglo XX y desde entonces han sido objeto de severas críticas por parte de quienes consideran que no es posible luchar por los derechos de las mujeres desde las propias creencias. Frente a sus opositores, académicas y activistas abogan por la hermenéutica coránica como herramienta para desvelar las potencialidades que el texto sagrado ofrece para la igualdad. Su discurso es, además, un ataque directo a las concepciones más tradicionales del feminismo occidental y sus representaciones a menudo estereotipadas de las musulmanas.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>Islamic feminisms were born in the 90’s and since then they have been subject to criticism by those who believe that it is not possible to fight for women's rights in the framework of a religion. However, the scholars and activists of the Islamic feminisms advocate for the Koranic hermeneutics as a tool to unveil the potential that the sacred text offers for equality. Their discourse is also a direct attack to the most traditional conceptions of Western feminism and its often-stereotyped representations of Muslim women.</p><p> </p><div id="SLG_balloon_obj" style="display: block;"><div id="SLG_button" class="SLG_ImTranslatorLogo" style="background: url('chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/img/util/imtranslator-s.png'); display: none; opacity: 1;"> </div><div id="SLG_shadow_translation_result2" style="display: none;"> </div><div id="SLG_shadow_translator" style="display: none;"><div id="SLG_planshet" style="background: url('chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/img/util/bg2.png') #f4f5f5;"><div id="SLG_arrow_up" style="background: url('chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/img/util/up.png');"> </div><div id="SLG_providers" style="visibility: hidden;"><div id="SLG_P0" class="SLG_BL_LABLE_ON" title="Google">G</div><div id="SLG_P1" class="SLG_BL_LABLE_ON" title="Microsoft">M</div><div id="SLG_P2" class="SLG_BL_LABLE_ON" title="Translator">T</div></div><div id="SLG_alert_bbl"> </div><div id="SLG_TB"><div id="SLG_bubblelogo" class="SLG_ImTranslatorLogo" style="background: url('chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/img/util/imtranslator-s.png');"> </div><table id="SLG_tables" cellspacing="1"><tbody><tr><td class="SLG_td" align="right" width="10%"><input id="SLG_locer" title="Fijar idioma" type="checkbox" /></td><td class="SLG_td" align="left" width="20%"><select id="SLG_lng_from"><option value="auto">Detectar idioma</option><option value="">undefined</option></select></td><td class="SLG_td" align="center" width="3"> </td><td class="SLG_td" align="left" width="20%"><select id="SLG_lng_to"><option value="">undefined</option></select></td><td class="SLG_td" align="center" width="21%"> </td><td class="SLG_td" align="center" width="6%"> </td><td class="SLG_td" align="center" width="6%"> </td><td class="SLG_td" align="center" width="6%"> </td><td class="SLG_td" align="center" width="6%"> </td><td class="SLG_td" width="10%"> </td><td class="SLG_td" align="right" width="8%"> </td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div id="SLG_shadow_translation_result" style="visibility: visible;"> </div><div id="SLG_loading" class="SLG_loading" style="background: url('chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/img/util/loading.gif');"> </div><div id="SLG_player2"> </div><div id="SLG_alert100">La función de sonido está limitada a 200 caracteres</div><div id="SLG_Balloon_options" style="background: url('chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/img/util/bg3.png') #ffffff;"><div id="SLG_arrow_down" style="background: url('chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/img/util/down.png');"> </div><table width="100%"><tbody><tr><td align="left" width="18%" height="16"> </td><td align="center" width="68%"><a class="SLG_options" title="Mostrar opciones" href="chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/html/options/options.html?bbl" target="_blank">Opciones</a> : <a class="SLG_options" title="Historial de traducciones" href="chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/html/options/options.html?hist" target="_blank">Historia</a> : <a class="SLG_options" title="ImTranslator Ayuda" href="http://about.imtranslator.net/tutorials/presentations/google-translate-for-opera/opera-popup-bubble/" target="_blank">Ayuda</a> : <a class="SLG_options" title="ImTranslator Feedback" href="chrome-extension://mchdgimobfnilobnllpdnompfjkkfdmi/content/html/options/options.html?feed" target="_blank">Feedback</a></td><td align="right" width="15%"><span id="SLG_Balloon_Close" title="Cerrar">Cerrar</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div>


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Ann Tétreault ◽  
Katherine Meyer ◽  
Helen Rizzo

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