Tag Archives: Women

Women in Islam: the Provisions of Islamic marriage law

The public debate over women’s role in Islam tends in the West to centre round the issue of the head-scarf, seen as symbolizing women’s inferiority, yet not all practising Muslim women wear the scarf and not all of them are of the opinion that this is undispensable. In fact it is Islamic marriage law which cements women’s inferior legal status as divinely ordained.

Islamic Feminism as an Effort towards Renewal and Modernization

The events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent reactions have moved the Islamic faith – and especially Islamic extremism into the public limelight and made it an on-going topic of discussion. While the opinions of politically active Muslims (Islamists) or extremists have increasingly become media topics, liberal Muslims are presented in much less detail. Islamic feminism may be considered one form of liberal Islam. It is characterized by the following aspects:

Bärbel Reuter: Islam as it is Lived out in Cairo Today by Female Islamists

Bärbel Reuter’s dissertation is a worthwhile compilation of 7 years of studying Islam as it is lived out in Egypt today. In this distinctive study, Reuter presents the opinions and viewpoints of younger women in Cairo who „feel deeply tied to the Islamic movement” (p. 246). This particular spectrum (or stream) of Islam called Islamism affects more than just individual behavior of a believer and how he/she personally applies their religious beliefs, it encompasses every aspect of the participant’s life and is considered an effective force for changing society which in turn brings changes to the political realm.

Muhammad and his wifes

When Islam is the subject, the topic „Women in Islam“ is also frequently discussed. This is not merely the result of controversial books on Islam (like Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses) or of the problems associated with a “parallel society”, or of the visible external differences between Muslim and non-Muslim women. The reports from human rights organizations on the situation of women in Islamic countries and the autobiographical accounts of Muslim women also fuel the debate about the acculturation of Muslim women in Western culture, under the rubric of “Women’s Rights in Islam“, for example.

Gritt Klinkhammer: Modern Forms of Islamic Life

In her doctoral thesis in sociology, Gritt Klinkhammer examines the manner in which young Muslim-Turkish women of the second and third generation live out their Islamic religious affiliation in Germany. Their parents generally belong to the religiously conservative first “guest worker” generation, from whose life and religious practises the young, educated women clearly want to make a break. The parents encouraged their daughters’ Koran school lessons, for example, or observance of Islamic social rules; however, they were often able to give their “enlightened” daughters little justification and explanation for celebrations, manners and religious obligations – justification demanded by the children in the secular environment. Although these parents have now lived in Germany for up to 35 years, they do not see themselves as “Germans”, nor do their children.

Islamic Human Rights under scrutiny

The frequent human rights abuses which take place in nearly all countries of the Muslim world are often the result of corrupt or dictatorial regimes and not necessarily due to either Islam or these countries’ view of human rights. Less widely known, however, is that international associations in Muslim countries have formulated their own human rights declarations in opposition to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the Plenary session of the United Nations in 1948.