Ou en est le feminisme islamique?

In: Critique internationale: revue comparative de sciences sociales, Heft 1, S. 25-44

Abstract

By comparing it with the secular feminism that appeared in some Muslim societies starting in the early 20th Century, and sketching its trajectory since its appearance in the 1980s, the novelty of Islamic feminism is brought to light. This movement devoted most of its efforts to defending the rights of citizenship and practiced a secular-nationalist, Islamic-modernist and humanitarian discourse. Islamic feminism, for its part, based its demand for social justice and absolute equality between the genders on sacred texts. Its development has consisted of two stages. In the first stage, which lasted two decades, a model of gender equality in Islam was elaborated on the basis of an innovative reading of the Koran and the fiqh (Islamic law). Although this model drew on the most recent analytical tools of the social sciences, it did not depart from the classical exegetical tradition. The second stage, which began only a few years ago, is characterized, on the one hand, by a desire on the part of its theoreticians to break free of this constraining framework of thought and, on the other, by efforts to construct a transnational movement. It would seem that, in Muslim circles, these two major trends of feminism (secular and Islamic) are today in the process of fusing. Adapted from the source document.