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Both Muslims and non-Muslims see women in most Muslim countries as suffering from social, economic, and political discrimination, treated by law and society as second-class citizens subject to male authority. This discrimination is attributed to Islam and Islamic law, and since the late 19th century there has been a mass of literature tackling this issue.
Recently, exciting new feminist research has been challenging gender discrimination and male authority from within Islamic legal tradition: this book presents some important results from that research. The contributors all engage critically with two central juristic concepts; rooted in the Qur'an, they lie at the basis of this discrimination. One refers to a husband's authority over his wife, his financial responsibility toward her, and his superior status and rights. The other is male family members' right and duty of guardianship over female members (e.g., fathers over daughters when entering into marriage contracts) and the privileging of fathers over mothers in guardianship rights over their children.
The contributors, brought together by the Musawah global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, include Omaima Abou-Bakr, Asma Lamrabet, Ayesha Chaudhry, Sa'diyya Shaikh, Lynn Welchman, Marwa Sharefeldin, Lena Larsen and Amina Wadud.
List of contents
Foreword |
Zainah AnwarAcknowledgements
Note on Translation and Transliteration
Introduction |
Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani and Jana Rumminger Muslim Legal Tradition and the Challenge of Gender Equality |
Ziba Mir-Hosseini The Interpretive Legacy of
Qiwamah as an Exegetical Construct |
Omaima Abou-Bakr An Egalitarian Reading of the Concepts of
Khilafah,
Wilayah and
Qiwamah | Asma LamrabetProducing Gender-Egalitarian Islamic Law: A Case Study of Guardianship (
Wilayah) in Prophetic Practice |
Ayesha S. ChaudhryIslamic Law, Sufism and Gender: Rethinking the Terms of the Debate |
Sa'diyya ShaikhQiwamah and
Wilayah as Legal Postulates in Muslim Family Laws |
Lynn WelchmanIslamic Law Meets Human Rights: Reformulating
Qiwamah and
Wilayah for Personal Status Law Reform Advocacy in Egypt |
Marwa Sharafeldin'Men are the Protectors and Maintainers of Women...': Three Fatwas on Spousal Roles and Rights |
Lena LarsenUnderstanding
Qiwamah and
Wilayah through Life Stories |
Mulki Al-Sharmani and Jana RummingerThe Ethics of
Tawhid over the Ethics of
Qiwamah | Amina Wadud About the Contributors
Index
About the author
Ziba Mir-Hosseini is Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Law, SOAS, University of London. A legal anthropologist, specialising in Islamic law, gender and development, she is a founding member of Musawah Global Movement for Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family. Her previous publications include Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Islam and Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition.
Mulki Al-Sharmani is Academy of Finland research fellow and lecturer, Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, and research coordinator of the Musawah knowledge-building initiative to rethink the notion of male authority in Muslim family laws. Her research interests include Muslim family laws, Islamic feminism, gender, migration and transnationalism. She is the editor of Feminist Activism: Women’s Rights and Legal Reform (ZED Books, forthcoming 2014), and her Egyptian Muslim Family Laws: Legal Reforms and Gender Justice is under consideration for publication.
Jana Rumminger currently lives in Singapore and works with Musawah, the global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. Her focus is on issues related to reform of Muslim family laws and implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). After graduating from Northeastern University School of Law, Jana spent a year as a Luce Scholar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where she worked on advocacy and law reform at a local NGO, Women’s Aid Organization. She then served as programme officer with International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific, an international NGO that works for the realization of women’s human rights through the lens of CEDAW and other international human rights instruments. She graduated from Princeton University in 1997 and earned an MS in Law, Policy and Society concurrently with her law degree at Northeastern.
