Search results

This essay explores gender issues in the contemporary application of Islamic law in the Muslim majority-states of northern Nigeria. Brief political background helps to explain the shari'a codes enacted by the legislatures of the states, drawing largely from the classical formulations of Maliki school of Islamic law. Women were among the first to be prosecuted and sentenced to death by stoning for the offence of zinā. To provide effective legal defense for the accused women, their lawyers and activists for women human rights had to argue in Islamic law before they could convince Shari'a Courts of Appeal to overturn the sentences of death by stoning and set the women free. In the process, women activists learned a lot about the classical formulations of Maliki school of Islamic law, where they discovered the rich flexibility of Islamic thought, and that has empowered them to articulate Islamic criticisms against gender bias in the recently enacted shari'a codes.

Der Beitrag untersucht Zusammenhänge zwischen Bildung/Erziehung und der Religion in Nordnigeria auf dem Hintergrund von Prozessen sozio-kulturellen Wandels. Der zeitliche Schwerpunkt der Untersuchung liegt in der Periode von den 1970er bis Ende der 1990er Jahre, die Analyse schließt allerdings auch die britische Kolonialzeit und die frühe Entwicklung des 1960 unabhängig gewordenen Nigeria mit ein. Das Spannungsfeld der Betrachtung reicht vom traditionellen Islam/islamischen Traditionalismus über modernen Islam/islamischen Modernismus bis zum Konflikt zwischen westlicher Orientierung und islamischem Fundamentalismus. (DÜI-Kör)