The Contribution of Female Writers in the Libyan Post Arab Spring: The Voice of Azza Al-Maghour`s Short Stories

Alongside the rapid political and social change post Arab Spring, Libyan writers were constantly producing volumes of literary work, whether in print or online, to reflect on the socio-political issues in the society. Among these writers is Libyan lawyer and writer Azza Al-Maghour; Al-Maghour has published a great many short stories during and after the revolution. What makes her work distinctive is that she not only narrates fictional events, but that she simultaneously reflects on the Libyan reality post revolution; and her voice, she is the voice of the people. Her narrative style is structured as a cultural and intellectual revolution. Using a critical discourse analysis, this paper will examine how Al-Maghour contributes to the socio-political construction of Libyan society, and argues that Al-Maghour`s narrative structure, story frame, language style, and word connotations are used as tools to channel her political views. This paper will pay special attention to Al-Maghour`s discussions of women rights, social justice, and Libyan nationalism through her story settings and her characters. This paper begins by giving a brief overview of the context of Libyan women in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution, followed by Azza Al-Maghour`s biography. The paper will then present an analysis of her stories through language, style, story structure, socio-political discussions, and her contribution as a Libyan female writer to the context of the post Arab Spring.

Women and Ijtihad: Towards a New Islamic Discourse

A phenomenon of extreme polarization between the Islamist and the secular camps characterizes the intellectual scene regarding social, economic, and political issues in the Arab-Islamic world. This is especially true with respect to women’s issues, which are a very hotly contested terrain. Understanding this reality clearly requires a historic overview to comprehend how this polarization occurred and map the debate between supporters of “modernity and contemporality” (al-hadatha wa-l-mu‘asara) on the one hand, and supporters of “tradition and authenticity” (al-turath wal-asala) on the other. Though this is not at the heart of our research, framing it in its historical context enables us to better understand the roots and origins of the problem, in order to map the debates and foresee future courses more clearly.

Zaynab al-Ghazālī’s Women, Marriages, and Contradictions: Her Life as an Archive

Zaynab al-Ghazālī (1917-2005) is regarded as a pioneering figure in the field of women’s preaching and religious teaching in Egypt. Her story, however, remains largely undocumented. In Western scholarship, al-Ghazālī has often been framed in terms of a contradictory figure, whose own choices flagrantly undercut her statements on the role of women in Islamic society. Trying to go beyond this type of appraisal, her writings are analyzed in order to question whether or not Zaynab al-Ghazālī’s intellectual genealogy should be understood within the context of her considerable exposure to a well-developed discourse of women’s rights at the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed, she made available to Muslim women a particular field of arguments, while foreclosing for them certain possibilities for action. Overall, her statements and choices in life need to be read as a function of her historical and geographical context and her positioning needs to be framed within the consciousness on the role women had come to play in the public domain.

The Arab Women Discourses on Feminism and Islam: Fear of an Oxymoron?

The academic discourse that deals with feminism and Islam makes some people cautious given the inherent double standards or oxymoronic nature of the combination of the following terms: “feminism” and “Islam”. Hence questions arise as to whether it is worthwhile for women to study Islam from a women’s issues perspective, or whether the religious monotheistic tradition and the patriarchal system it entails can coexist with the feminist standpoint. Do feminist Muslim women actually exist? Is Islamic feminism just “a trend” since Islamic discourse is en vogue and is widely discussed and dissected?

Muslim Women Seize a Place of their Own in the World of Religious Knowledge: Da‘iyat, mujtahidat, and ‘alimat

The attitudes of historians and scholars towards women’s contribution to the scholarly field of Islamic knowledge range between recognition and denial. In view of a number of publications on this issue, major attitudes can be classified as follows: An attitude that recognizes the importance of women Islamic scholars (alimat) starting with Aisha, the Prophet’s own wife, who was considered a main source of the Prophet’s sayings or Hadith (the record of the Prophet’s sayings and deeds), and including other women at later stages of Islamic history who stood out and became famous for their religious knowledge. Moreover, there were Sufi women who were knowledgeable about religion and gained a reputation for their ability to explain to people the rules and principles of the faith.

Discourses About the Eligibility of Women on the Moroccan National List: The Gender Foundations of Electoral Inequality

The introduction of gender quota in Morocco in 2002 has been the subject of much debate revolving around the nomination processes and the ranking orders within the national list. The procedures followed by political parties can uncover other aspects related to gender dynamics. In this article, I set out to understand the processes by which female candidates are selected on the national list. While analyzing the discourses taking place concerning the recruitment process, I will try to pay attention to the gap between discourses and practices. This study allows us to go beyond the approach that looks at gender quotas as a global phenomenon, exploring at the same time the personal views of women who are experiencing the process from inside. How is gender displayed and social structures recreated through this discourse? The analysis of these discourses can contribute significantly to our knowledge of women’s political representation and political elite formation. Listening to candidates’ views about criteria of selection informs us about the way in which gendered discourses are reproduced and internalized.

On Islamic Feminist Texts and Women Activism

In the early nineteen nineties, when Arab and Muslim women in the diaspora began to speak of the linguistic construct “Islam” and “feminism,” the two terms were not yet closely connected. The discourse was rather about Islamic feminism as a trend or as a different form of gender awareness and renewal in Islamic thought (Badran, 2009). With the start of the twenty first century, a large group of Muslim women scholars and activists working on feminist issues, researchers on Islam, theologians, and social scientists from Senegal, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Malaysia, France, and the United States met for a conference in Barcelona (October 26-30, 2005) under the title “Junta Islamic Catalonia”. The Iranian Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Pakistani Refaat Hassan, Afro-American Amina Wadud, Pakistani Asma Barlas, and many other voices were heard officially discussing “Islamic feminism”, knowing that the phrase itself was used earlier in the journal Zenan, in post-revolutionary Iran.

Feminist and Islamic Perspectives: New Horizons of Knowledge and Reform, Edited by Omaima Abou-Bakr. Published by Women and Memory Forum.

The production of this volume spanned various stages, beginning with the idea of holding a conference that gathers Muslim women researchers from the Arab region and Europe interested in the cause of Islamic feminist knowledge and reform, to the event itself, the publications, and their launch.

Lesbianism as Another Alternative for the Other: A Punishment or an Escape? The Saudi Novel "al-Akharun/The Others" as a Sample

World Literature has witnessed the appearance of many novels that focus on the physical experiences of the “body” and deal with sexual themes. In their historical context, these novels represent a protest against the social moral values and search for alternatives. Among these novels are Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Anna Karenina, and Madame Bovary. In Arabic literature, the Egyptian writer Ihsan Abd al-Qudous laid the foundation for this type of novel. Literature has developed through breaking the barrier of taboos and adopting different forms. One of the controversial issues, whose red lines literature has crossed, is the issue of sex, which exists in every human relationship between males and females. The Arabic novel has addressed sexual taboos and dealt with them as an adventure still in its initial stages despite numerous significant contributions that have appeared in the 20th century. Recently, Saudi Arabian women writers have broken various taboos and dealt with the problems that they confront as women in the Kingdom by employing the themes of sex, the body, and other taboo issues. Some critics accused these writers of trying to draw attention to themselves by exploiting these subjects to increase their readership. In fact, these novelists have exposed new phenomena in conservative Saudi society and broken the stereotypical image of conservative Saudi women. This study deals with Saba al-Herz’ novel al-Akharun/The Others as a sample of these novels.