Feminism and Islam Religion

Throughout the Muslim world, a popular front of feminist belief is growing among women who are looking forward to reclaim Islam and the Quran for themselves. For ten years, many women trusted that they had to choose between their Muslim personality, their identity, and also their belief in gender egalitarianism. It was beyond the bounds of possibility of their choice that, the person that involved betraying either their faith or their feminist knowledge. About few years ago, a global movement called “equality” in Arabic “Musawah” start to make the case that women can fight for justice and equality among Islamic tradition.

“Musawah” was started by twelve women, from countries as different as Egypt, Gambia, Turkey and Pakistan, who spent two years laying out the movement’s guiding principles. Musuawah operates on the belief that Islam is not inherently biased toward men; patriarchy within Muslim countries is a result on the way male translator have read Islamic texts. With this foundation for action, Musawah empowers women to form the understanding, standard and laws that affect their lives(“The Nation”).

According to Omaima Abou-Bakr, who is among the first person who conceptualized Islamic feminism, labeled Islamic feminism can be limiting when used by western scholars to name the gender activism of Muslim women.(“Mulki Al-Sharmani”). Women’s empowerment was closely linked to some specific ways and strategies of women activists to dismantle internal structures in some common gender relations and to correct existing gender hierarchies. Women’s empowerment depends largely on their political, social and economic independence and self-determination as well as on their active participation in the political and public globular object(“Dayana Parvanova”).

To mention just a few forms of feminisms, there are western-educated Muslim feminists living outside their home countries who, deeply involved in and trained by the feminisms of their adopted country, base their feminism on human rights disertation and blasphemy. Musawah’s members support it mission by bearing with educational materials, fighting for legal provisions and supporting the idea about women’s right. “Equality”-Musawah’s approach is modeled on a Malaysian organization called “Sisters in Islam”. Zainah Anwar, one of Musawah’s key architects, founded Sisters in Islam in 1988 and has made it an important political and religious force in Malaysia. According to Anwar, many Muslim women spend their entire lives trusting that their hardship is justified by Islamic teachings, such as the idea of “a husband’s authority over wife”.

Over the past twenty-five years, “Sisters in Islam” has seen a change in the culture, as more women speak up opposite to their misery by appealing to Islamic law. There had been stories from Malaysian women influenced by the organization’s work who now redistribute religious arguments to check injustice in their marriages. For instance when women are being beating by their husband’s, when their husband’s have affairs or stop acting as their husband, they insist their agency by arguing that this behavior or attitude goes against Islam. Always husband’s are much more likely to respond to religious appeals then if they clear their point out that their actions are hurtful. Anwar made a statement that “Women are claiming the authority to speak on Islamic law and participate in the construction of meaning. Musawah’s ambition is to multiply and amplify this voice at an international level”(“The Nation”).

The co-founder of the Majlis legal Center Flavia Agnes in Mumbai, aim attention on her work to provide legal support to Muslim women in Indiana their situations. Majlis start working with Muslim communities after the year 1992 riots, promoted by the destruction of the “Babri Masjid. Agnes believes “Muslim women have the rights, even the Qur’an and hadith give women rights, but now it’s up to women to go forward to the court, and get those rights clarified or explained.” For instance, under India’s 1950 constitution, all citizens and made certain equality before the law, however, because of the religious foundations of Hindu family law, women of minority faiths, particularly Muslims, have been denied certain legal rights. A number of controversial pronouncements contributed to a growing view of Islam as backwards and oppressive and provided further justification for violence against Muslims. The focus on the oppression of Muslim women creates a false narrative of Hindu women as ‘give freedom,’ which ignores many social problems in that community. As justification for a lack of focus on religion, many held that religion is private and their advocacy was focused on the public globular object(“WFDD”).

In some ways, Equality operates as a kind of research institute, commissioning the work of international experts in the fields of Islamic jurisprudence, history and ethics to find counternarratives that are liberating to women. Since Islamic feminists functions out of the belief that there is no single authoritative understanding of the Qu’ran, there is no end the explanatory process. Those people who reject Islamic feminist interpretations need only arm themselves with convincing counterarguments to shift the debate back in their favor. Gender inequities keep going in thoughtful and durable ways. It is also likely that Islamic feminists will begin to disagree among themselves about specific understanding of the Qu’ran and Sharia, which may lead to divisions with the movement. Islamic feminists will have to continue to provide am armament of their work in order to sign up for responsibility to support the secular feminists, who avoid the individual reality that accompanies religion by focusing on universal human rights(“The Nations”).

Muslim women used the Qur’an to empower as strategy. In the Qur’anic text itself is a good example of the Qur’an- centered interpretation, referred to earlier by Amina Wadud and Khaled Abou El Fadi and supported Muslim feminists today for re-interpretations of gender and women’s verses. In other to deduce a conclusion meanings of justice and equality which fit with the accepted moral point of communication of the Qur’an. Nasr al-Joueli’s chapter also tackles the subject of Qur’anic interpretation and its various strategies. The Qur’an present genderless religious views and view, and suggest transcending gender, as this is one of the features and characteristics of Absolute Divine perfection(“Omaima Abou-Bakr”).

In essece, importance democratization requires that gender inequalities are addressed. “Empowering Women”, fulfilling women’s rights isn’t about women as a group asking for gender-defined rights, but a gender-defined group demanding the realization of equal rights(“Ragna Lillevik”). Women empowerment underwent a process of regimentation by development agencies in 1990s it was remove contents of its original meaning connected to feminist politics and transformation gender power relations. The Gender and development approaches started being reflected in the local projects relating to women’s rights and Islam. The term Islamic feminist itself has been the subject of controversy and disagreement, due to diverging political position as to whether it is possible to reconcile feminis with Islam or not(Ewa Strzelecka”).

Islamic feminists will have to continue to provide the defense of their work in order to enlist the support of secular feminists, who avoid the subjectively that accompanies religion by focusing on universal human rights. The Islamic feminism has an important role to play in this process. “This process is unfolding differently in each country because of different political structures and social conditions, but it is happening.” Those who reject Islamic feminist interpretions need only arm themselves with convicing counterarguments to shift the debate back in their favor. “It is possible that Islamic feminist will begin to diasagree among themselves about specific interpretations of the Qur’an and Sharia, which lead to divisions within the movement(“The Nation”).                                 

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