Muslim Women: Contemporary Debates

Muslim Women: Contemporary Debates 45 Farjana Mahbuba and Sonja van Wichelen Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theological Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Debating the Muslim Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Place of Gender in Political Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 934 935 938 941 943 943 Abstract This chapter discusses contemporary debates around the topic of gender relations in Muslim societies with a focus on Muslim women. After a brief introduction and geographical orientation of the subject matter, we start the chapter with a description of theological debates around the role of women in Islam and Muslim understandings of sex and gender. We then shift our attention to contemporary practices and discuss socio-cultural debates around the (gendered) Muslim body and explain how and why they have been central in the instrumentalization of politics. Here we include the discursive and symbolic politics around veiling that have taken a prominent role in European debates around citizenship, integration, and belonging. Following from this, we deliberate the place of gender in political theology and conclude by engaging with the question of transnational feminism. F. Mahbuba (*) University of Western Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] S. v. Wichelen Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Lukens-Bull, M. Woodward (eds.), Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32626-5_76 933 934 F. Mahbuba and S. v. Wichelen Introduction It goes without saying that there is no static definition of “Muslim women.” As this Handbook attests, Muslims themselves do not form a homogeneous group of people. The sociocultural diversity among Muslims around the world, along with their historically developed traditional local habitus, resulted in Islam having an unmistakable imprint of regional culture and traditions. These diversities have led to significant discrepancies in the understanding, adoption, and practice of Islam in different Muslim societies. The practice of Islam varies from society to society following each society’s own history and culture which mediates its practice of Islam. It is also subject to social, political, and economic changes within that specific society and vis-à-vis other nation-states in a globalized context. Along with sectarian, geographical, and historical variations in the lives of a Muslim, an individual woman’s life is also influenced by nonreligious factors including class, race, ethnicity, age, and health. Therefore, any general referring to “Muslim women” would be misleading as what Muslims practice in one context can be totally unheard of in another. Whereas Muslim women in many Arab countries cannot marry without the permission of a male guardian (Algeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen), in other Muslim countries, they not only can marry by their own choice but can also become the president or prime minister of the country (Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh). Turkish and Mongolian women, for example, enjoy relatively more egalitarian gender relations in both private and public spheres, whereas, generally, South Asian Muslim women are scarcely found in public engagements or political roles. Historically too, gender perception in Muslim societies varied and differ extensively. In the early period of Islam, women could contract their own marriages in Iraq, but this was not so in Madinah. This indicates Islam’s considerable flexibility in adapting to diverse cultures and also its legitimacy in exercising independent critical judgment or ijtihad in the case that there is no explicit direction in the Qur’an and Hadith. The diversity in gender perceptions that prevails in different Islamic schools of thought is actually produced by this culturally heterogeneous ijtihad carried out by Muslim scholars in the past and present. In understanding contemporary debates on Islamic gender issues, it is crucial to point out that Islam was introduced and gradually developed within a specific Arab cultural context where the principles of moral and ethical teaching of Islam have remained universal, but the interpretation and practice of them were directly affected by cultural, historical, and political settings. As a consequence, this substantially influenced Muslim gender relations. As the scholar Leila Ahmed argues in this respect: “had the ethical voice of Islam been heard (. . .) it would have significantly tempered the extreme androcentric bias of the law, and we might today have a far more humane and egalitarian law regarding women” (1992, p. 88). To understand how Muslim women are defined, perceived, and judged in Islamic thought, it is important, then, to pay exclusive theological attention to Muslim women. But it is not only theology that has had its influence on Muslim gender perceptions and relations. A sociological and anthropological perspective on the subject 45 Muslim Women: Contemporary Debates 935 allows us to see what kinds of issues are central to the subject of Muslim women in contemporary religious and secular societies (see, for instance, Ahmed 1992 for Egypt, Brenner 1998 and Van Wichelen 2010 for Indonesia, Mahbuba 2014 for Bangladesh, Najmabadi 1993 and 1998 for Iran, and Göle 1996 for Turkey). Processes associated with local (folk) culture, urbanism, revivalism, capitalism, postcolonialism, authoritarianism, and globalization affect the gendered subject as much as theology does. Much of the scholarship about Muslim women discuss these localized debates and take into account how the cultural and historical context affects the ways in which Muslim women live their lives today. Although differences have been described between, for instance, Muslim women in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, most of the studies carefully show how there are also differences between Muslim women in the same local contexts. Finally, the subject of Muslim women is central to the discussion on the role of religion in politics or “political theology” (Asad 2003; Asad et al. 2009; Mahmood 2006). In today’s globalized world dominated by the economic and political power of OECD countries and the hegemony of secular state formation, political Islam is associated with terrorism and seen as antithetical to liberal democracy. Muslim women serve as pawns in the debate whether political Islam is compatible with such modern democracies. But as many Muslim and feminist scholars have illustrated in their scholarship, contrary to the general portrayal of Muslim women in the Western media as always-already victimized, the realities of Muslim women’s lives range from being oppressed and segregated to enjoying equal and sometimes more freedom and legal protection than their non-Muslim sisters in the developed Western and European countries (Hoodfar 1998; Abu-Lughod 2002). More important in this debate, some (feminist and postcolonial) theorists have argued that in contrast to our Western notions of freedom, religious submission for the pious subject can be a form of freedom and agency too (see Mahmood 2003). Contemporary debates on Muslim women, then, can be approached from a variety of perspectives: theological, sociological/anthropological, and a more theoretical “political theology” perspective. The chapter for the Handbook discusses these varieties of perspectives. It aims to describe the range of scholarship available on contemporary debates on Muslim women and to clarify some of the core themes associated with the topic. Theological Discussions Theology remains central to the discussion on contemporary Muslim women. The common Muslim perception of women as being the root of all evil, being by nature “crooked” and in need of constant guidance, is often justified by the interpretation of the story of Hawa (Biblical Eve, Adam’s wife) and her guilt-filled character despite the Qur’an having no mention of Hawa being the blamed one. Nowhere in the Qur’an has it indicated even a slightest hint that Hawa tempted Adam to eat the forbidden fruit or even that she had eaten before him. Rather, the Qur’an held both Adam and Hawa equally responsible. The contrary belief that Hawa’s “seducing” 936 F. Mahbuba and S. v. Wichelen nature and “bad” influence compelled Adam to consume the forbidden fruit resulted in well-accepted interpretation of women’s “naturally deficient” femininity. For example, a medieval scholar, al-Tabarī, argued that Hawa was the sole responsible and that her role reveals women’s deficiencies (Stowasser 1994). Muslim understandings of sex and gender inherited the old “wrongdoing” image of Hawa to an extent, which depicts women as the instrument of fitna (potential of chaos). It is strengthened by another general Muslim perception that Hawa was created out of a “bent” rib of Adam, and that’s why the womenkind are by nature “crooked” and “deficient.” Smith and Haddad (1982) criticized this general Muslim perception of women writing that: [i]n the broader scope of Islamic tradition, however, the image of Eve became altered, often to the point where she alone was seen responsible for the downfall of her mate. And parallel to that development came an elaboration of the brief Qur’anic mention of the creation of Adam’s wife. In the scripture the references are sparse and with no word of her having come from any part of Adam; in the later reports one finds frequent references to Eve as having been created out of the side of Adam, or from his bone, often described as crooked. (p. 135) This guilt-filled image of Hawa which resulted in a general Muslim perception of wicked, morally inferior, and untrustworthy female sex, along with many other similar social stigmas, has therefore been challenged by the contemporary Muslim female scholars (see Barlas 2002; Mernissi 1987). In a postcolonial geopolitical setting, these female scholars’ endeavor is to offer a more balanced and harmonious Qur’anic understanding of different sexes combating the medieval Qur’anic interpretations that had gradually reduced women’s full humanity, spiritual freedom, and moral responsibility. This contemporary rereading of the sources also tackles conventional Muslim subscription of gender dualism thesis which “presupposes that men are rationally superior to women, who, in turn, are highly emotional beings with weak or deficient rational faculties” (Duderija 2013, p. 357). Bringing alternative viewpoints into the interpretation and rereading of the sources, the newly emerged trend of female scholarships is challenging the traditional and conservative perception that links women with the notion of socio-moral chaos ( fitnah), according to which the nature of women’s aggression is sexual in nature, and men are irresistibly attracted to it. Men’s stamina, hypersexuality, and sex as a biological drive are recurring themes in many gender discussions. The “libido” argument, i.e., that men have more sexual urge than women and male sexuality is aroused beyond control by the mere sight, smell, or voice of a woman, is neither new nor uncommon in other parts of the world and also presents in Western constructions of male sexuality (Van Wichelen 2010). It is mostly based on men’s “uncontrollable” animalistic sexual instinct and posits women’s sexual body as an inciter of fitnah (potential chaos). A South Asian leading Muslim scholar, Maududi (1962), argued that “the most important problem of social life is [. . .] how to regulate the sexual urge into a system and prevent it from running wild” (p. 145, as cited in Rozario 2001). Understandings of Islamic gender perceptions started to be challenged and questioned in the nineteenth and twentieth century when, as a response to Western 45 Muslim Women: Contemporary Debates 937 and secular encroachment, the Muslim world witnessed a wave of reformation. On the question of Islamic gender relations, this reformist turn railed toward two opposite directions. On the one hand, reformists like Ahmed Khan, Mumtaz Ali, Chiragh Ali, Rifaah Rafi al-Tahtawi, Qasim Amin, and Muhammad Abduh advocated for a more general religious and intellectual equality between the sexes and emphasized on the gap between current practices and authentic Islamic doctrines. Girls’ education and more female participation in public activities were a primacy in their reformation. On the other hand, at the same time, a completely different response proposing different solution to the Western and secular influences raised. A call of urgency for Muslim women to return to their domestic role, emphasizing on the gender differences that necessitate different roles for men and women, was getting vocal in the Muslim societies. Women working outside home or participating in any public activities were continuously questioned in a tone that kept comparing between Muslim and Western family lives and kept posing warning that Muslim will soon lose their precious families if they can’t stop Muslim women imitating Western women running after “so-called” freedom and gender equality. The postcolonial and globalized era brought societies much closer together which facilitated the exchange of various cultural perceptions. The sense of Muslim women losing their “Islamic” identity was continuously expressed through the concern that, like Western women, Muslim women have started to “neglect” their primary responsibility of nurturing children and looking after home. That concern is still very much present in the contemporary Muslim gender discussion. This conservative interpretation of Islamic gender relations informed the formation of so-called Islamic feminism in the last 20 years. Moreover, female Muslim scholars are increasingly engaging with religious texts and contributing to shaping this very same movement. The term “Islamic feminism” itself is highly contested by both Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslim critics saw the movement as a form of Western feminism disguised as Islamic feminism, while some Western critics saw the bringing of feminism with Islam as an oxymoron. Because feminism for many Muslims evokes white, colonial, and Eurocentric values, many Muslim scholars maintain caution in proclaiming themselves as Islamic feminists. Others, however, firmly embrace the term. Iranian scholars Shahla Sherkat, Afsaneh Najmabadeh, and Ziba Mir-Hosseini; Saudi Arabian scholar Mai Yamani; Turkish scholars Yesim Arat, Feride Acar, and Nilufer Göle; and South African scholar Shamima Shaikh all passionately talked about Islamic feminism and how it can bring new dynamics toward Muslim women issues from within. Islamic feminist theorists and interpreters contribute significantly to contemporary Islamic gender debates by highlighting the Qur’anic spirit of gender equity and justice. Scholars such as Fatima Mernissi (1987), Leila Ahmed (1992), Amina Wadud (1999), Ziba Mir-Hosseini (1999), Asma Barlas (2002), Nimat Hafez Barazangi (2004), Zainab Alwani (2012), and Riffat Hassan (2013) wrote extensively on gender-friendly interpretations of religious texts. Muslim women, as they advocate, should be recognized as complete legal, spiritual, social, and free individuals who are equal servants to Allah as men and who have the same responsibilities 938 F. Mahbuba and S. v. Wichelen to understand and interpret religious sources. Employing an ethico-religious valuesbased approach to interpretation of the Qur’an, Hadith, and other sources, these female scholars stress Islamic principles of ethico-moral equality of the sexes before Allah, principles that have lost weight in the intervening centuries. Their emphasis is on women’s religious identity being solely based upon their level of taqwa (piety/ god-consciousness). Muslim theologians are pointing to the existence of severe disparities between what is actually referred in the religious sources and how they are interpreted and understood in the various cultural and geopolitical settings. Riffat Hassan (2002) wrote, for instance: The more aware I became of the centrality of gender-justice and gender-equity in the Qur’anic teachings regarding women, the more troubled I felt seeing the injustice and inhumanity to which many Muslim women are subjected in actual life. (p. 138) In sharp contrast to the female Muslim scholarship that existed in the early period of Islam, the later development of Islamic traditions remained patriarchal and rigid to male interpretation only. It is thus hardly surprising to encounter the traces of men’s superiority to women in the classical as well as modern interpretation of religious sources. This false sense of male superiority is mainly based on three assumptions that God’s primary creation is man, that woman was the primary agent of “Man’s fall,” and that women were created not only from men but for men, which makes her existence merely instrumental (Hassan 2002, p. 139). The Qur’an provides no basis for implying any of these abovementioned assumptions, and some scholars have argued that these perceptions of women are mostly influenced by Greco-Roman misogynist understanding of female gender (Hassan 2002; Wadud 1999). Wadud (1999), for example, went into a great detail in explaining the nature of selective interpretation of the Qur’anic verses and evidenced the Qur’anic spirit of gender equity. In light of this, it is suggested (see Ramadan 2009) that a critical revision of women’s representation in Islam be grounded in a renewed examination of the religious sources. Debating the Muslim Body Besides the theological reflections by Muslim clerks and (feminist) scholars, the persisting lack of legal and social rights for women; the limitations on their autonomy, freedom, and mobility; and the difficulty of their access to social, political, and economic opportunities in many Muslim-majority societies have been hailed as a harsh reality not to be dismissed. Many Muslim women in those societies do not enjoy the basic rights given to them by Islam as more and more interpretations of the faith, which goes against the interest of women, have taken hold, mostly taken out of context and often used to justify certain behavior. The sociocultural perceptions of women and femininity in many Muslim societies are often defended by the misogynistic interpretation of the religious sources. 45 Muslim Women: Contemporary Debates 939 A common characteristic of the dualistic thinking that pervades many religious, cultural, and philosophical traditions is to identify and define women with their body rather than with mind and spirit (Hassan 2002, p. 140). The Muslim woman as gendered body, then, is deployed differently in national and cultural contexts, and there have been various sociological and anthropological studies that have described and analyzed these contexts. Analyzing religion and politics via the body brings out meanings attached to our time and ourselves (Warner 1985, p. 331). Bodies represent central symbols of sociocultural and political change (Ong and Peletz 1995). As metaphors and symbols, it is attached to the imagination of the nation-state, which, in turn, is symbolically shaped through domestic genealogies that carry with them notions of motherhood, fatherhood, sisterhood, and brotherhood (McClintock 1993). The symbolic component of gender politics is important because it can be organized and positioned as an instrument of persuasion and coercion – the basis of politics (Eickelman and Piscatory 1996, p. 11). Played out in the public domain, they conjure desires, fears, and imaginations over the “religious” and the “secular” and define new understandings of gender, family, and society. Following these conceptualizations of the body as producing meaning in a wider social and cultural field, the use of gendered bodies in this chapter is to emphasize how gender and sexuality relate to the wider cultural politics of nation-states undergoing sociopolitical and global changes. Although there are a variety of issues debated with respect to Muslim women (violence against women, divorce, polygamy, political agency, female leadership), this Handbook chapter restricts itself to the subject of veiling in order to show the variety of contexts in which Muslim women’s bodies are disputed. Much of the scholarship on veiling in Muslim societies attends to sociological or anthropological explanations explored within the domain of political protest, identity, or strategy. While some present the phenomenon of veiling as “accommodating resistance” (MacLeod 1991), others point to veiling as enhancing modes of piety important to Islamist configurations of female Muslimness (Abu-Lughod 1995; Göle 1996) and modern formations of class relations (Van Wichelen 2009, 2012). Research also indicated that Muslim women need not to be either passive or resisting: while some “bargain” with Islamic patriarchy (Kandiyoti 1988), others identify with “revivalist ideals of motherhood, male authority, and the imagines of the body politic” (Ong 1990, p. 258). Ultimately, these scholars argue that rather than viewing the veil as a symbol of oppression, they regard the practice of veiling as a conscious choice women make in everyday (religious) life. The meaning of veiling differs over space and time, and the practice comes in many different forms, shapes, and extent of use, depending on other sociopolitical and cultural factors. While there is no denying that, in many frequent instances, the religious rulings of women’s covering are used as a tool to wield power over women in many Muslim societies, for many Muslim women, veiling in various degrees is a response to the need to promote personal piety. It could also be a political expression, or a response to peer pressure, or a strategy to access public spaces and gain more mobility. For many others, it simply means respecting social norms and religious traditions. It even can be “a symbol of liberation” expressing the observer’s religious 940 F. Mahbuba and S. v. Wichelen “moral and ideological principles” (Hasan 2005, p. 48). Many of them find in veiling a protection from the male gaze and freedom from the need to worry about hairstyles and body shapes (Foley 2001). However, the contemporary debate and discussion on Muslim women’s veiling mostly swings between two opposite directions. In much of Western public and media discourse, veiling became a symbol of Muslim women’s oppression, subjugation, and marginalization: “Veiling to Western eyes – the most visible marker of the differentness and inferiority of Islamic societies – became the symbol of both the oppression of women and the backwardness of Islam” (Ahmed 1992, p. 152). Analyzing this negative association of veiling with patriarchal repression, Hasan (2005) argued that the assumption that veiling “is a sign of female oppression dictated by men covertly entails the following two presuppositions: first, all Muslim women are passive recipients of patriarchal subjugation; second, Muslim men are, in general, women’s oppressors; western men are, on the whole, women’s liberators” (p. 48). Such persistent Eurocentric prejudices have their colonial roots and rely on the Western tradition of romanticizing images of the veiled woman and the mysterious harem. Taking Muslim women as symbols of the savageness of the colonial Other serves as justifications for European and American colonial and imperial ambitions (Said 1978; Kirmani 2009). A renewed focus of Orientalist discourse on Muslim women, justifying Western secularist hegemony, is frequently demonstrated by “the plight of Muslim women” which periodically surfaces on the media often to serve Western politics. Such discourses are particularly evident in the rising scholarship of the veil in Europe. Following political and public debates on veiling in France, Germany, Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands, the European discourse on veiling reflects its internal struggle with matters pertaining to immigration and multiculturalism on the one side and freedom of religion in the secular state on the other. Christian Joppke’s Veil: Mirror of Identity (2009) maps out these debates in three different European countries: France, Germany, and Britain. Studies concerning veiling in Europe are inextricably been linked to the “woman question” in Islam. Looking at how Islam affects women’s lives, women’s rights, and gender justice, these studies centered on two overlapping feminist questions, namely, whether Islam restrains women’s freedom and mobility (Is Islam bad for women?) and whether Islam is compatible with liberal democracy or liberal movements such as feminism (Is Islam bad for feminism?). Ultimately, these issues refer back to the subject matter of agency in feminist theory. Proponents of the “incompatibility thesis” regard the act of veiling and the symbol of the veil as discrediting women. Because of presumed misogynist structures of the Qur’an (as Holy Text), Islam (as religion), Islamism (as fundamentalism), or the Islamic state (as theocratic polity), they understand (veiled) Muslim women to lack freedom, agency, and the ability to resist these structures. The veil is a convenient indicator of this unfreedom. To them, Muslim women suffer from “false consciousness,” and by aiding them to incorporate a more feminist consciousness will allow them to acknowledge these oppressive practices and ideologies. The practice of unveiling would then be understood as a liberatory act, namely, of freeing oneself from the shackles of religion. 45 Muslim Women: Contemporary Debates 941 Contrasting Joppke’s view on the headscarf debate is the historian Joan Scott’s Politics of the Veil (2009). Her reading of the French discussions on veiling uncovers hidden French histories of racism and colonialism that become conflated in secular standpoints against veiling. It culminates in a “civilizing process,” depicting Muslims as in need of reform and Enlightenment while rendering the European – and the French citizen in particular – as already enlightened. Scott cautions against the dichotomy of “the veiled woman constrained by Islam” versus “the free woman in the enlightened West” of which the latter is absolutist secularist. Examples from Britain, the Netherlands, and the USA indicate similar politics of gender and sexuality in defending liberalism and advocate for a critical assessment of the presumed universalism of liberalism and secularism. This line is also taken by the anthropologist Saba Mahmood whose approach to veiling engages with the idea of habituation. Rather than considering veiling practices as a symbol for something more profound, the bodily form – in this case the veil – is not something contingent but is “a necessary aspect of understanding its substantive content” (2003, p. 846). In this respect, Mahmood wonders why feminists who work on issues of the veil engage so little with the explanation that women veil because they desire to become pious. She contends that scholars analyze a myriad of sociological motivations in the domain of economy, protest, or strategy, while notions such as morality or divinity are conveniently set aside as belonging to “the phantom imaginings of the hegemonized” (2001, p. 209). She hereby poses the question as to what the concept of agency in feminist theory can mean for women who deliberate docility, cultivate shyness, and submit themselves to certain forms of authority. The question of agency is also important in thinking more generally about the place of gender in political theology. The Place of Gender in Political Theology Saba Mahmood argues that secular reason and morality – as proclaimed by the philosophy of Enlightenment and the paradigm of modernity – are not the sole anchors through which notions of self and agency are constituted. As such, the assumed basic goals of “freedom” or “empowerment” might very well not be basic goals for everyone (2005, p. 13). Similar to Mahmood, Hassan (2002) also argues that: Any paradigm of human rights or self-actualization that is constructed outside of the belief system of the people living in a particular society is likely to be regarded as irrelevant. In societies that are overwhelmingly and profoundly Muslim, (. . .) programs of action that violate or disregard what is of cultural value and meaning to the masses of people are doomed to failure. (p. 143) The rise of Anglo-European empires which coincided with the downfall of the Ottomans – the last Muslim Khalifath – in conjunction with their colonial endeavors and diplomatic interference in the East, followed by recent ground invasions of US coalition in some Muslim territories, complicated and perplexed the place of gender in 942 F. Mahbuba and S. v. Wichelen political theology. The evolution of political Islam in the Muslim world all around the globe is excelled by such continuous Western interferences and complicated the religious debates over Muslim women’s participation in public life. Despite the traditional family roles of Muslim women being transposed into the structures of political Islam, the momentum of it is hailed by the vast participations of Muslim women themselves. In recent years, the public participation of Muslim women in the events of the Arab Spring not only directly contradicted mainstream perceptions of Muslim women as an isolated, private-only community who are kept away from public sphere by their male oppressors but also challenged the perceptions of their lack of agency. Just like Western politics, its mainstream feminism is also guilty of generalizing the situation of Muslim women all around the world and despite its honest and genuine efforts to empower Muslim women fell into the trap of geopolitical race and class stereotyping. The media focus on “the oppression” of Muslim women and the violence “inherent” in Islam worked as a catalyst in this process. Their typical expectation of Muslim women to throw off their burqas, abandon their Islamic and cultural identities, and embrace “secularism” as a means to be “liberated” not only misguided their way into the Muslim societies but also yielded a significant mistrust and misunderstanding between women of color and women of noncolor. It also led to a huge amount of support into “antireligious” and/or secular women and human rights organizations from Western donors that complicated rather than eased the problems on the ground. Distrust vis-à-vis Western donor-sponsored NGOs is a common phenomenon in many Muslim societies. It also boosted up a worldwide attention to the newly emerged genre of Muslim women’s autobiography that is based on “victimology paradigm” (Ramji 2007) portraying them as victims of repressive social order and “macho” Muslim culture. The general Western prescription of secularism, as a preconditional “requirement” for democracy, to the Muslim societies is substantially challenged within the Muslim world’s internal dialogue on the gender subject. Proposing secularism as a solution to existing gender problems within the Muslim societies is actually based on the hypothesis that Islam is not compatible enough to pluralism and hence kept its doors closed to new thinking and reasoning in addressing gender issues. In this process, secularization is often regarded as the measurement for modernization and portrayed as progress itself, an assumption that has plenty of room for questioning (Fish 2002) and must be “radically rethought” as it relate to modernity and democracy (Stepan 2001). Steven Fish (2002), examining if the predominantly Muslim populated countries are more or less hospitable for democracy, presented a similar argument that the widespread perception of Islam dictating the low political status of Muslim women is flawed. Obermeyer (1992) echoed this affirming that the political and legal inequalities experienced by Arab women cannot be satisfactorily explained by linking it to Islam only. An overlapping emphasis from the Muslim (clerics and female) scholars is being placed on the integration of ijtihad into an effort to engage with this Islamic heritage as a moderate alternative to Western secularism (Kersten 2011). Ijtihad or independent critical reasoning allows this Islamic gender scholarship to apply their intellectual rereading of religious sources and bring new dynamics into the understanding of gender issues. 45 Muslim Women: Contemporary Debates 943 Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter attests to the growing and global scholarship on the subject of gender in Islamic epistemologies, Muslim women’s lives, and the place of gender and Islam in political theology. Although gender inequality and gender-based violence continue to take place in both Muslim and non-Muslim societies, Muslim women’s increasing participation in shaping Islamic thought might help to resist the convenient and colonial symbol of Islam and gender oppression (Barazangi 2008, p. 407). Women having equal access to scriptural interpretation are reemphasized in contemporary discussions, and opportune justifications of (culturally articulated) patriarchy by referring to Islamic religious sources are increasingly scrutinized. In response to an age-old silencing of female Muslim voices in Islamic theology, many Muslim women are reinterpreting and revisiting religious source texts, in particular the ones regarding gender relations, women, sexuality, and reproduction. As such they are becoming active in Qur’an study circles, mosque-based activities, and Islamic education, as both students and teachers and community activities sponsored by religious organizations. Moreover, their activities have a transnational and global force. The combined spread of literacy, the availability and promotion of public education for both boys and girls, the technological revolutions which eased conversations across the globe, and the massive entry of women into the paid workforce all have helped Muslim women in opening many doors of opportunities to formulate renewed religiocultural identity and status in society and to establish a global sisterhood network across geopolitical boundaries. A consequence of this cross-boundary movement is the birth of international Islamic feminist movement. Vibrant, passionate, and often contentious, this newly emerging trend is not only confuting the forceful homogenization of the diverse situations and status of Muslim women on the ground but also progressively challenging the highly problematic notion that “Muslim women” represent a distinct category with a common identity and their lives “mostly” revolve around the issues of veiling, polygyny, domestic violence, divorce, etc. Such transnational alliances have not only challenged practices of some local Muslim authorities who have appropriated the right to monitor women’s appearance and behavior, but they have also confronted secular biases of equating (orthodox or pious) religion with women’s oppression. By doing so, Muslim women situate themselves vis-à-vis dominant religious discourses as well as dominant secular discourses that either label them as traitors of their culture and religion or as submissive religious subjects prone to a supposedly inherent Islamic gender violence. 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