Suchergebnisse

The author analyzes the question of women's rights in Pakistan in the light of the controversy between proponents of General Zia-ul Haq's martial law ordinances supporting the religious right wing and modernist Muslim scholars that do not accept the sole authority of the Ulama. He argues that the moral religious and social pronouncements of the Quran must be seen in a socio-historical context. After examining the question of purdah, Islamic views on family life and recent measures to islamize Pakistani laws he concludes that the question of wohmen's rights has deep cultural roots in the attitudes of Pakistani men towards women, nourished by economic factors, and is not just linked to political and religious exigencies. To overcome their present patriarchal-capitalist framework, modernist women theologians will have to lead women in their battle for equality. (DÜI-Kwe)

Today, women-related questions are considered to be one of the most controversial questions regarding Islam in Europe. The resurgent interest in Women, as well as the gender questions emanating, and spreading from the West is due to an increasing, more assertive and visible Muslim population, and the ensuing issues focusing on women such as the hijaab and niqaab (veil). As a corollary to this, gender issues are central in the discussions of conversion to Islam, whereby female conversion to Islam has become a focal point of Western efforts to understand Islam. This paper aims to provide an overall analysis of the phenomenon of the appeal, and embracing of Islam by Western women in the context of how they view the status given to them by Western society, the pull and push factors; their attempt to create a niche of identity, dignity and equity for Muslim women both within the discourse among Muslims on the role of women in Islam, as well as a space within the overall narrative of 'Islam in the West;' all of this being despite the polemics centering on the rights of women where the portrayal of Islam is that of a patriarchal, sexist religion that subjugates and demeans women.