Islamic Feminism Revisited

Haideh Moghissi

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/31/1/76/243811/CSA311_10_Moghissi.pdf by guest on 30 May 2024

ver a year has passed since millions of Iranian people poured into the streets pro-
testing the rigged presidential elections that reinstated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in
office for a second term. The powerful yet remarkably nonviolent protest movement,
in particular the images of beautiful young women at the front rows of street demonstrations,
their clearly secular appearances, their courageous encounters with police and plain-­clothed
thugs, and the killing of a young woman, Neda Agha-­Soltan, whose murder was captured on
camera, mesmerized the world. These images helped challenge the long-­held perceptions
about religion-­steeped “Muslim” women and the political and emotional attachment of people
to the Islamic state and its values and practices. The protests also helped silence, temporarily
at least, the cultural relativist academics and commentators who since the mid-­1990s had been
beating the drums of secularism’s end in Iran and had tried to push Islamic feminism as the
only homegrown, locally produced, and hence culturally suitable project for changing the lot
of women in Iran and indeed in Muslim-­majority countries.
The ebbing of the street protests under the brutal pressure of security forces and the
pushing underground of all forms of opposition, however, seem to have resuscitated those
who support Islam as the Middle Eastern version of liberation theology. For more than a decade
the proponents of the idea, through their “field research,” documentaries, and reports and in
total disregard for the loud voices of the overwhelming majority of urban women (and men)
with or without faith inside Iran, wittingly or unwittingly lobbied on behalf of Islamists’ proj-
of
d ies ects. Contrary evidence for what women wanted did not stand in the way of their theorization
e St u because it had a market in the West that perceives Middle Easterners as faceless, thoughtless
ra ti v d
pa an
m ri ca crowds of Muslims, at the grips of a strange and unknowable religion. The stale debate over
Co , Af
A si a the potentials of Islamic feminism for Iranian women was reintroduced in a Persian-­language
u th st BBC television program, Pargar (29 June 2010) demonstrating that these views still have a mar-
So Ea
le
M idd ket. Perhaps this is the case more now that Iranians’ revolt against the clerical state has been
th e aborted, to the delight of the foolish leftist analysts in the West, who, blinded by Ahmadine-
11 4
20 - 05
o . 1, 10 jad’s anti-­West rhetoric, have branded the change-­seeking revolt in Iran as the frustration of
1, N 20
3 0 1x- ss
ol. 92 Pre
well-­to-­do middle-­class youth against the hero of the Iranian proletariat.1 Regardless of the
   V 108 ty
/ i
2 15 er s intentions of the BBC program’s producers, and the value of one die-­hard supporter’s argu-
i1 0.1 ni v
o eU
    d Du
k ments for the Islamic feminist project, a further elaboration of the key points in the Islamic
y
11 b feminism debate is warranted.
20
©

Parts of this essay were published in the Spanish journal Cultu- 1. For a critical analysis of the supporters of Ahmadinejad among
ras, no. 7 (2010): 59 – 71. the Left in the West, see Saeed Rahnema, “The Tragedy of the
Left Discourse on Iran,” Zed Net, www.zcommunications.org/
the-­tragedy-­of-­the-­lefts-­discourse-­on-­iran-­by-­saeed-­rahnema
76 (July 2009).
 Islamic feminism, as a concept, found cur- serious dialogue about the possibilities and limi- 77
rency in the mid-­1990s, when it was used to dis- tations of feminist projects of different sorts for
tinguish a brand of feminism or the activities of Muslim societies.
Muslim women seeking to reform, in women’s To many secular feminists in and from Is-
favor, social practices and legal provisions that lamic cultures, including myself, this tendency
rule Muslim societies. Amid prevailing reports reflects an essentialized notion of women in
on extreme forms of restrictions imposed on Islamic cultures as an undifferentiated crowd,
women in Muslim societies, it was encouraging united by their faith, regardless of whether they

Haideh Moghissi

Islamic Feminism Revisited

that the focus had shifted to speak of the spirit, are practicing Muslims. They are all “Muslim”
the strength, the resilience, and the agency of because they live in Muslim societies and that
Muslim women. The reality of women’s resistance explains it all. Obviously, if we consider women
against rigid religious and cultural practices and in Muslim societies as different and take that dif-
their ingenuity in finding ways to cross the male- ference to be absolute and final, and see Islam

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/31/1/76/243811/CSA311_10_Moghissi.pdf by guest on 30 May 2024

­serving legal and social boundaries must be rec- as the only defining factor in their identity and
ognized, recorded, and discussed, for they give their lives, we will not listen to or even hear the
heart to others who struggle against different many voices that are raised against the author-
forms of domination and oppression. ity of Islamic Sharia and its legal practices in de-
What was and still is disturbing, however, fining people’s social and moral actions. Such a
is the lack of balance in most of the affirmative frame of mind obscures the diversity of women’s
accounts of Muslim women’s activism. Many pro- class status, ethnic origin, rural or urban loca-
ponents of Muslim women’s agency and Islamic tion, and social and moral standards and the
feminist projects avoid any discussion of oppres- different aspirations and life choices that are
sive gender practices and seem to disapprove of granted to women everywhere else. This is the
a critical analysis of the Sharia-­based reforms result of pure imagination. Indeed, “imagina-
that are central to the Islamic feminist agenda. tive geography and history help the mind to
My concern has been and continues to be that intensify its own sense of itself by dramatizing
the uncritical acceptance of Islamic feminism as the distance and difference between what is
a new libratory project in Islamic societies is not close to it and what is far away,” as Edward Said
in the service of women’s cause.2 The push for noted.3 Overlooking the many different factors
promoting Islamic feminism, I fear, is not really that divide rather than unite women in Islamic
opening new possibilities for feminists to hear cultures, the tendency sometimes appears as a
different voices and to encourage, welcome, and push to force Islam on women and to treat the
learn about new ideas and divergent strategies in skeptics as outsiders to their own culture. One
specific cultural and political contexts. It is not wonders whether the term Christian women, or
by engaging in a mutually respectful and con- for that matter Christian feminism, as a frame
structive dialogue, promoting a climate of criti- of reference for identifying all women and all
cal thinking within feminism, finding common feminists in Western Christian societies would
ground, or strategizing to achieve specific goals be as acceptable and justified as the identifier
that women are empowered and the struggle for Muslim women is in reference to women in the
gender justice is elevated. The euphoric emphasis Middle East.
on Islamic feminism reflects, rather, a romanti- This totalizing tendency is not confined
cized notion of Islam and an Islamic frame as an only to academic settings. After participating
alternative way of being and acting for change, in a debate on CBC Radio about the hijab and
to the detriment of all secular projects. It has an women’s legal rights in Islamic cultures, the
intimidating and silencing effect and discourages moderator asked me if I wouldn’t have more

2. I discuss this view in more detail in Haideh

Moghissi, Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The
Limits of Postmodern Analysis (London: Zed Books,
1999).

3. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage

Books, 1978), 55.
 78 credibility if I stayed within the boundaries of is about the careless and totalizing use of the
“my culture” and used an Islamic conceptual term Muslim women, which throughout Muslim
framework to discuss women’s rights issues. societies encompasses distinct groups of women.
Obviously, my critical views about gender poli- The Islamic feminists’ agenda is not necessarily
tics and sexuality under Islamic rule irritated embraced by all of them. It is embraced even less
him since they did not fit his perceptions and by secular women who may or may not practice
expectations. This was not my first experience Islamic rituals in their daily life but do not see a
e with individuals inside or outside the academy need for the interference of religion in civic life.
ra ti v
m pa who feel uncomfortable, even resentful, of argu- They do not believe in the applicability of Sha-
Co ments that diverge sharply from accepted and ria in this time and age and have divergent views
f
ie so
tu d
internalized conceptions of “Muslim women.” on the obstacles to the best strategy for achiev-
S
ia , They expect that people from Muslim socie­t ies ing gender equality. For example, in elaborating
As
th
S ou he represent their societies’ cultural values, the the identifier, Islamic feminism in the context
dt

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/31/1/76/243811/CSA311_10_Moghissi.pdf by guest on 30 May 2024

n
fric aa main ingredient of which is assumed to be their of gender politics in Iran, I have suggested that
A st Islamic content. That is why they tend to take as the term Muslim women is often used by some
Ea
d le authentic and representative of a community’s Iranian academics including different groups
d
Mi
cultural values only the voices that reflect the of politically active Muslim women who may or
dominant religious ideology. Only the voices may not embrace feminism. I have argued that
that fit perceived ideas and expectations regard- in their hands, the term Muslim women turns
ing Islam and women from Muslim societies are into precisely the sort of “one size fits all” con-
considered as the insiders’ voice and deserve to cept that flattens the diverse material conditions
be heard. In other words, some people have the and ideological configurations experienced by
right to cultural representation and some don’t, the Iranian female population.4 They include,
depending on whether what they say confirms for example, a group of Muslim female elite,
preexisting images and expectations about a torchbearers of the Islamists, with very rigid,
society or a community. In the exchange men- traditional views on gender issues. They accept
tioned above, I was seemingly out of line with Islamic Sharia and its promises for women’s
my own culture. After all, as a woman from the rights tout court. A few examples of women in
Middle East, I was expected to remain true to this group are Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini’s
my “culture” — and Islam is supposedly all that daughter Farideh Mostafavi and her associates
there is to my culture. Not only had I committed in the Society of Women of the Islamic Repub-
the mistake of drawing attention to differences lic; Malakeh Yazdi, the daughter of former chief
among people from Muslim societies on Islam’s justice Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi; and female
gender practices, but by speaking critically of members of Hezbollah, who have been used
those practices, I had transgressed the intellec- to attack other women in demonstrations and
tual and conceptual line that protects critical close down newspapers since Iran’s 1979 revolu-
thinking as the domain of Western scholars. tion. The “Muslim women” in the second group
Feminism now includes many brands, both are also part of the established order, if only
conservative and radical, religious and atheist, slightly more removed from the points of com-
heterosexual and nonheterosexual, white and mand. Educational opportunities and a newly
nonwhite, issue-­oriented and holistic, individual- acquired involvement in public life have brought
istic and community-­oriented, North and South. them face-­to-­face with their male counterparts’
So it certainly has room for yet another brand of masculinist values and demeaning practices. I
feminism that is self-­identified or identified by have argued that this group’s activities, regard-
others as “Islamic feminism.” I think that this less of political intentions, are a hopeful sign;
point needs no further argument. The concern they may help get the regime they support to

4. For more discussion of this subject, see Haideh

Moghissi, “Émigré Iranian Feminism and the Con-
struction of Muslim Woman,” in Émigré Feminism:
Transnational Perspectives, ed. Alena Heitlinger (To-
ronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 189 – 207.
remove some gender-­based educational and em- portance of the specific historical and political 79
ployment barriers. Former parliament deputies, contexts within which agency should be defined
such as Maryam Behroozi, Marzieh Dabbagh, or to discard even the smallest gains benefi-
Ateqeh Rajabi, Fatemeh Haghighatjou, and oth- cial to women, such as the increase in women’s
ers in their circles, can be counted among this public presence in schools and the workforce
group. The women in the third group, while achieved under rigid Islamic rule. But neither
loyal to the Islamic regime and the values for should agency be redefined in such a broad
which it stands, are critical of its treatment of sense that it erodes the importance of conscious

Haideh Moghissi

Islamic Feminism Revisited

women and try to soften its gender-­oppressive resistance against domination.
policies. These women hope to reform Islamic To elaborate this point further, the em-
Sharia in favor of women, and they are the ones phasis on agency, it is suggested, generally has
who may be identified as Muslim feminists. That been a rhetorical device in sociology to coun-
is, they are Muslim women who, while embrac- ter deterministic accounts of human activity. It

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/31/1/76/243811/CSA311_10_Moghissi.pdf by guest on 30 May 2024

ing Islamic ideology as liberating, are genu- has been a means to celebrate the independent
inely trying to promote women’s rights within power of individuals in relation “to whatever
the confines of Islamic Sharia by proposing a might be cited as a possible constraint upon
more moderate and more female-­centered in- [them].” 5 Hence even when we simply follow
terpretation of the Koran. Shahla Sherkat and rules or norms we manifest our agency. It is
her associates, the editors of now closed wom- perhaps based on this understanding that Saba
en’s journals, such as Zanan and Farzaneh, and Mahmood proposes that agency should be taken
Zahra Rahnavard are examples of this group. not as “a synonym for resistance to relations of
I should add, however, that the term, as it is domination” but as “a capacity for action that
used, also includes many secular women who, historically specific relations of subordination
for lack of any other allowed discourse, have enable and create.” 6 I propose a different ac-
had to use Islamic discourse to articulate wom- count of agency, however, one that takes more
en’s demands. The feminist lawyer and human seriously than Mahmood’s definition the “indi-
rights activist Mehrangiz Kar, who has now been vidual powers to reason and to choose” and the
forced to take residency in the United States, is ability “to behave as independent, autonomous
a case in point. So, too, is the Nobel Peace lau- human beings,” notwithstanding the fact of “the
reate Shirin Ebadi, despite the fact that in her susceptibility of individuals to social influences
post-­Nobel interviews for political expediency, and pressures.”7 That is, feminism represents a
she often feels compelled to stress her Muslim moral vision and a movement central to which
identity. In any case, my point is that women in are the struggles for personal and social trans-
all these different, diverse, and often opposing formation and activism on behalf of individual
categories should not be identified as Muslim women and women as a group to change legal
women because the term denotes specific rela- and cultural constraints and gender practices in
tions and perceptions. favor of women. Agency can mean acting ‘“oth-
To cloud differences among these women erwise,” or not in conformity to the status quo.8
and suggest that their activism on gender issues, To put it simply, the element of conscious action
regardless of its goal, makes them “feminist” ac- against forces of domination has to be retained
tivists is, at best, misleading. For the “agency” in our definition of agency. That is, agency is
of some of them is positively damaging to femi- acting not only by but for women. Besides, the
nists’ struggles for gender equity, dignity, and question of who benefits from women’s agency
basic human rights. This is not to deny the im- should be of particular importance in the con-

5. Barry Barnes, Understanding Agency: Social The- der, Politics, and Islam, ed. Therese Saliba, Carolyn
ory and Responsible Action (London: Sage, 2000), Allen, and Judith A. Howard (Chicago: University of
48 – 49. Chicago Press, 2002), 4.

6. Saba Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, 7. Barnes, Understanding Agency, 50.

and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections of the Egyp-
8. Judith Kegan Gardiner, ed., introduction to Provok-
tion Islamic Revival,” Cultural Anthropology 16 (2001):
ing Agents: Gender and Agency in Theory and Practice
202 – 36, cited in Therese Saliba, introduction to Gen-
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 2.
 80 text that agency is acting on behalf of women they consider the efforts of Muslim feminist
as a group. Otherwise, women’s expression of scholars futile is made by Valentine Moghadam,
agency is celebrated each time they leave the in her presentation of bits and pieces of the de-
house to participate in religious practices or in bates over the issue among Iranian feminists.10 I
demonstrations, or they follow orders or rules would argue that this is a rather careless, if not
set by religious leaders or the state, or even when deliberate, misrepresentation by Moghadam of
they function as auxiliaries or agents of patriar- the range of views she identifies as anti-­Islamic
e chal domination and control. As is well known, feminism. In fact, I was among the very few who,
ra ti v
m pa women can be used effectively in the produc- in the early 1990s, rejoiced at the voices of pro-
Co tion and exercise of the most undemocratic, mi- test emerging from the ranks of Muslim women
f
ie so
tu d
sogynist values and policies and in the rise and who had been essentially mobilized to present
S
ia , consolidation of fascist-­t ype movements and Islamic role models to the younger generation
As
th
S ou he regimes. This agency, as such, does not deserve of the female population. I noted at the time:
dt

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/31/1/76/243811/CSA311_10_Moghissi.pdf by guest on 30 May 2024

n
fric aa validation and blessing, except by those who “The resistance of women from within the re-
A st benefit from it to consolidate their power and gime against the gender-­based discrimination
Ea
d le control over others. In other words, the intent or even Islamization methods indicates a re-
d
Mi
and the content of the agency should matter. awakening of women and their will to change
For women, having agency should include mov- their conditions.” And I added that “women’s
ing in the direction of identifying the forces that resistance and protest, in any form, is reason
limit their capacity to have control over their to rejoice for all Iranian feminists.”11 A more
lives and make informed choices within specific evenhanded reference to my argument would
cultural and political contexts, to transform the have shown that even in criticizing the Islam-
conditions that reduce and weaken that capac- ization policies of the clerical regime in Iran, I
ity. Obviously, resistance against domination is was quick to stress women’s resistance: “None of
central to this definition of agency regardless of what has been said, however, is to suggest that
the form and intensity of the resistance. women have been the passive victims of the Is-
A major complaint of some who have en- lamization policies in Iran. To be sure, women
tered the debate about Islamic feminism is that since the Revolution have been at the forefront
the secularist side (myself included) is dismis- of the struggle to secure democracy for Iran.”12
sive of Muslim women’s agency. Asma Barlas, for In discussing the compelling social and
instance, writes angrily that in my book Femi- economic realities of the country and the resis-
nism and Islamic Fundamentalism Muslim women tance of women as the drive behind demands for
“come across as wretched dupes . . . they have no gender equity, I have used the metaphor that
agency or independence.”9 She also writes that the Islamic government has not opened the
I find it hard to approach Islam with an open gates to women, women have jumped over the
mind because I am an “Iranian” and my “stand- fence.13 I speak of “women’s resistance” as an
point epistemology” prevents me from being indication of “women’s reawakening and their
open-­minded. Aside from this extraordinarily will to change their conditions,” acknowledg-
poor logic of dismissing an argument because ing and validating women’s activism in its many
of a person’s national origin, it is simply an inac- forms, as an outcome of their conscious, intel-
curate reading of my argument, to say the least. ligent, and admirably well-­t hought-­out strategy
The charge that secularists “are disdain- to push back Islamization policies. By contrast,
ful of the agency of Muslim feminists” and “un- Moghadam focuses on the “agitation by activist
appreciative of women’s resistance” and that Islamic women” (my emphasis) as the reason

9. Asma Barlas, “The Antinomies of ‘Feminism’ and 11. Haideh Moghissi, Populism and Feminism in Iran:
‘Islam’: The Limits of a Marxist Analysis,” Middle East Women’s Struggle in a Male-­defined Revolutionary
Women’s Studies Review 18, nos. 1 – 2 (2002): 5. Movement (London: Macmillan, 1994), 184 – 85.

10. Valentine Moghadam, “Islamic Feminism and Its 12. Moghissi, Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism,
Discontents: Toward a Resolution of the Debate,” in 118 – 19.
Saliba et al., Gender, Politics, and Islam, 15 – 51.
13. Moghissi, Populism and Feminism in Iran, 183.
for lifting certain restrictions on women in the the Islamic doctrine from within rather than ad- 81
fields of education and employment.14 Worse, vocating a Western model of gender relations.”15
in her account of women’s activism, not a single Worse, secularists’ projects for women’s libera-
word is said about the resistance of hundreds tion are condemned because, in Therese Saliba’s
of thousands of secular women who in words words, they “treat religion in general and fun-
and deeds have challenged and continue to damentalism in particular as a problematic tool
challenge the legal and moral authority of the of oppression used against women, rather than
Islamic clerics. The continuous battle over the as a viable form of feminist agency.”16 Anouar

Haideh Moghissi

Islamic Feminism Revisited

hijab that is still fought in the streets of Tehran Majid suggests that secularism and the idea of
and other major cities between Islamic moral- separation of state and church are Western phe-
ity police and young women, after thirty years nomena, and a new form of Orientalism, which
of its imposition on women, is a case in point. cannot be superimposed on Islamic cultures.17
The difference between the two positions is Hence a “redefined Islam” is the viable alterna-

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/31/1/76/243811/CSA311_10_Moghissi.pdf by guest on 30 May 2024

that Moghadam and other promoters of Islamic tive to the unrelenting process of Westerniza-
feminism in Iran placed fantastic hopes in the tion and the sometimes extremist practices of
transformation of the Islamist regime, particu- fundamentalists.18 From this mind-­set Islamic
larly in a handful of Muslim female elites like feminism would naturally seem to be “one of
Faezeh Rafsanjani, the daughter of the former the best platforms from which to resist the ef-
conservative Iranian president, as the embodi- fects of global capitalism.”19 Majid’s reference to
ment of Islamic feminism in Iran. By contrast, Iran as the successful example of his proposed
the secularists stressed the resistance of ordi- “redefined Islam” makes it clear what sort of
nary women and the campaign of the activists, Islam its redefined version will be. Margot Bad-
without using the identifier “Muslim feminism,” ran even advises that although Islam­ist move-
in the context of the country’s contradictory so- ments are patriarchal and oppressive to women,
cial and political system. women can find room to maneuver within the
My concern has been that overexcitement less extremist Islamist mainstream. To follow
about Muslim women’s agency and the push for her suggestions, all we have to do is widen our
the agenda of Islamic feminism, presenting it as definition of Islamism to see the “more liberal
the revolutionary and workable feminist strategy and progressive manifestations or radical (in a
for the Middle East, reflects reduced expectations positive sense) potential of present political Is-
about what is achievable, or necessary, for women lamic movements.”20
in Islamic cultures. This position is, in my view, Obviously, we are dealing here with not
defeatist. If Islam is seen as the only constituent only Islam but also Islamism, about which
ingredient in the culture of a region as diverse “open-­mindedness” is urged. It should be clear
as the Middle East, then Islamic feminism seems why there is a concern that the rise of Islamic
not only workable but desirable as the only cul- feminism and its academic celebration as a new
turally viable alternative to West-­initiated femi- libratory ideology is not as innocent as it might
nism. Hence only the voices that use Islam and appear. As Nadje al-­Ali argues, the portrayal of Is-
an Islamic framework as their reference point lamists as the only alternative force to increasing
are considered authentic and representative of Western encroachment, in the extreme manifes-
women’s agency in Muslim cultures. Identifying tations of this tendency, means that these schol-
feminist secular projects as “Western,” Homa ars “have been actively, if unwittingly, engaged in
Hoodfar places all her hope in Islamic feminists muting those groups and individuals who have
since, she argues, they “challenge and reform opposed or reacted against Islamism.”21

14. Moghadam, “Islamic Feminism and Its Discon- 16. Saliba, introduction to Gender, Politics, and Islam, 3. 20. Margot Badran, “Understanding Islam, Islamism,
tents,” 20. and Islamic Feminism,” Journal of Women’s History 13,
17. Anouar Majid, “The Politics of Feminism in Islam,”
no. 1 (2001): 48.
15. Homa Hoodfar, “The Veil in Their Minds and on Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 23
Our Heads: The Persistence of Colonial Images of (1998): 353. 21. Nadje al-­Ali, Secularism, Gender, and the State in
Muslim Women,” Resources for Feminist Research 22, the Middle East: The Egyptian Women’s Movement
18. Ibid., 353.
nos. 3 – 4 (1993): 17. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 25.
19. Ibid., 355.
 82 But no political development in the last and that “the term Islamic feminist” might be
two decades has convinced me that these con- an invitation to us “to consider what it means
cerns and the earlier probing into the nature of to have a difficult double commitment: on the
Islamic feminism as a transformative ideology one hand, to a faith position, and on the other
and movement have been superfluous.22 We still hand, to women’s rights both inside the home
need to analyze what kind of “Islam” and what and outside.”24 But in my view, an analysis is
sorts of relations with it are presumed. Do we needed of how these double commitments are
e mean “Islam” as a medium uniting women and going to express themselves in a noncontradic-
ra ti v
m pa the supposed cosmic power, in response to per- tory and non-­self-­negating manner in a real-­life
Co sonal, gender-­specific needs, or does the term situation. Presumably, Islamic feminism is not
f
ie so
tu d
instead entail a prescribed set of ideas, teachings, a philosophical concept to be debated only in
S
ia , and texts as applied to women, indeed an entire an academic setting. It is a transformative ide-
As
th
S ou he preestablished moral and legal order? And how ology and a movement for addressing gender
dt

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/31/1/76/243811/CSA311_10_Moghissi.pdf by guest on 30 May 2024

n
fric aa could religion, in this case Islam, which is based injustices in Muslim societies. Like any other
A st on gender hierarchy, be adopted as the frame- revolutionary or transformative project, to be
Ea
d le work for struggle for gender democracy and effective, it needs to have a clear and realistic
d
Mi
women’s equality with men? If Islam and femi- assessment of its own weaknesses and strengths,
nism are compatible, which one has to operate identifying foreseeable obstacles and a well-
within the framework of the other? ­thought-­out strategy for how best to implement
These are pressing questions that need to its agenda. An analysis of the complexities and
be addressed in a serious dialogue about the lim- contradictory aspects of the “double commit-
its and possibilities of alternative feminist projects ments” of Islamic feminism is crucial if it is to
in Islamic cultures. But Miriam Cooke, among be the winning project in the political battle
others, seems to think that asking these questions against the forces of oppression. My point is sim-
is to conflate Islam and Islamic fundamentalism. ply that jubilation over Islamic feminism would
Would that mean that we should avoid a critical not allow impassionate analysis of the limita-
engagement with Islamic feminism or with Islam, tions and constraints of Islamic feminism as a
for that matter, lest we may sound critical of Islam “revolutionary project” for women’s liberation
itself for the stubborn survival of gender discrim- in the Middle East.
ination in Muslim societies? For as Leila Ahmed For example, it is perfectly legitimate to
proposes, what matters is Islam’s ethical, egali- point out, as Qudsia Mirza does, that the idea
tarian voice, not its legalistic voice.23 But I would of equality and its implications for the concept
argue that in Muslim societies, particularly with of sexual difference or sameness does not seem
the rise of Islamism, it is Islam’s legalistic voice to inspire Islamic feminists to interrogate their
that is heard, listened to, and obeyed, often by own frame of reference. By refusing to incor-
force of coercion, to the detriment of women. My porate the notion of difference into their own
concern has been that the scholars who harbor theorization and by presenting themselves as
heady enthusiasm for Islamic feminism often ne- indigenous and authentic, untainted by West-
glect the crucial distinction between Islam as a ern concepts, Mirza rightly argues, Islamic
legal and political system and Islam as spiritual feminists bypass the need for recognizing the
and moral guidance. By focusing only on the lat- heterogeneity of Muslim societies, inevitably
ter, they unwittingly soften the sharp edges of the considering irrelevant the concerns of women
former. who are at the political margin of these socie­
It may be that Islamic feminism works “in ties.25 Also entirely pertinent is the argument
ways emblematic of postcolonial women’s jock- made by Shahrzad Mojab that “there is nothing
eying for space and power,” as Cooke suggests, sacred about veiling” and that it is completely

22. I analyze these points at length in Feminism and 24. Miriam Cooke, Women Claim Islam: Creating Is- 25. Qudsia Mirza, “Islamic Feminism, Possibilities
Islamic Fundamentalism. lamic Feminism through Literature (New York: Rout- and Limitations,” in Law after Ground Zero, ed. John
ledge, 2001), 57 – 59. Strawson (London: Glasshouse, 2002), 113.
23. Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Histori-
cal Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1992), 238 – 39.
proper to criticize the veil as a symbol of male choices. But to proponents of Islamic feminism, 83
domination and state power in Islamic societies, even in the absence of such developments, achiev-
“even if all Muslim women voluntarily used it.”26 ing women’s rights seems plausible, provided, of
It is quite appropriate to extend our critique to course, that we reduce our expectations to fit the
the Koran itself for the situation of women. As limits defined and implemented by a handful
Ghada Karmi proposes, even though the Koran of Muslim elite in Muslim-­majority societies. In
is not a misogynist document, it confirms and other words, it is only when a feminist agenda for
legitimizes the existing patriarchal structures the Middle East is concerned that complacency

Haideh Moghissi

Islamic Feminism Revisited

in Arab societies. Besides, Karmi suggests, the and a dutiful following of social rules and norms
seemingly contradictory verses that send mixed are recommended. Obviously these scholars
messages must be viewed in social and histori- know what is best for women in Islamic cultures,
cal contexts and not as eternally applicable and and what is best for women is based on what
unchanging.27 they think they know about women in Islamic

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/31/1/76/243811/CSA311_10_Moghissi.pdf by guest on 30 May 2024

Seen in this context, no legal tradition or cultures. Therefore female seclusion and the co-
cultural practice should be protected against ercive imposition of sex-­segregation and the Is-
a feminist critique simply because it has per- lamic veil should not be seen as symbols of male
sisted for many centuries in Muslim societies or control over female sexuality and moral conduct,
because the majority of the population has ac- emblematic of the objectification of women.
cepted it as just and appropriate or as inevitable. They should not be regarded as instruments to
After all, unequal gender relations and women’s limit women’s activities or to punish women for
inferior cognitive capacity and subordination in their imagined, omnipresent, active sexuality.
private and public domains were also viewed as Instead, we are advised to see the Islamic veil,
normal, just, and appropriate in Western soci- for example, as a tool of female empowerment,
eties, before sweeping economic and political or a “creative alternative” developed by women
forces of change altered the situation consis- to increase their participation in public spaces,
tently in the previous century. Moreover, given or as an anticonsumerist claim for women’s right
that the doubting and questioning of Islamic to modesty, which protects them against sexual
legal practices are life-­t hreatening activities in harassment.28 However, I think it quite reason-
almost all Islamic societies, and the critical indi- able to ask why is it, then, that after thirty years of
vidual can be persecuted for blasphemy (kofr), imposing mandatory veiling on Iranian women,
the responsibility for opening a dialogue on ceaseless resistance against the Islamic veil has
these issues falls on the shoulders of the Middle continued and its observance has to be moni-
Eastern scholars, inside or outside the academy, tored by police force and various legal and para-
who live in the West, free of such threats. legal measures? Is it not that millions of young
Overemphasis on the Islamic frame for women who defy the veil code despite all threats
women’s rights struggles in the Middle East as- and violent punishments do not see the Islamic
sumes feminism in the region to be a unique, veil as the tool of women’s empowerment?
particular, and exceptional category within the No doubt the intention is to draw attention
global feminist movement. Legal and social to Muslim women’s moral agency and challenge
equality for women everywhere has been linked the colonial mentality that saw veiled women
to the transformation of socioeconomic struc- as nothing but victims of male aggression. But
tures, secularism, the legally protected toleration the point is that in the past the most extreme
of difference, recognition of and respect for indi- examples of Muslim women’s oppression were
vidual freedoms, and an acceptance of individu- used to demonize Islam and Muslims in general,
als’ moral agency and ability to make their own and at present the lives of Muslim female elites

26. Shahrzad Mojab, “‘Muslim’ Women and ‘West- 27. Ghada Karmi, “Women, Islam, and Patriarchal- 28. On the veil and modesty, see Fadwa El Guindi,
ern’ Feminists: The Debate on Particulars and Univer- ism,” in Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Per- Veil, Modesty, Privacy, and Resistance. (Oxford, Berg
sals,” Monthly Review 50, no. 7 (1998): 20, 26. See also spectives, ed. Mai Yamani (New York: New York Uni- 2000). On the veil and protection, see Lama Abu
Hammed Shahidian, Women in Iran: Emerging Voices versity Press, 1996), 69 – 83. Odeh, “Post-­colonial Feminism and the Veil: Thinking
in the Women’s Movement (Westport, CT: Green- the Difference,” New England Law Review 26 (1992):
wood, 2002), chap. 3. 30 – 32.
 84 and upper-­and upper-­middle-­class women are ern or Western-­based scholars of Middle East-
being made an example of independent-­minded, ern origin, who in any case do not live in Muslim
gender-­conscious Muslim women who of their societies.
own free will choose the veil and do not face any The very simple point in the analysis of
barriers in social and political life. Behind such Islamic feminism from a secularist position is
assertions is the notion that Middle Easterners that women’s resistance to patriarchal domina-
are more religious than the rest of the world and tion in Islamic cultures must be supported and
e that the rise of Islamist regimes and movements assisted regardless of the form it takes. But as I
ra ti v
m pa results from this religiosity and not social, eco- have argued elsewhere, the best way to support
Co nomic, and political problems. If we go down this the struggles of women in the Middle East is not
f
ie so
tu d
slope, then perhaps religion should also be con- to erase differences among them or play down
S
ia , sidered an appropriate frame for women’s move- the basic distinction between secular and Islamist
As
th
S ou he ments in countries like the United States, where visions. To privilege the voice of religion and cele-
dt

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/31/1/76/243811/CSA311_10_Moghissi.pdf by guest on 30 May 2024

n
fric aa religious beliefs and the political influence of the brate “Islamic feminism” is to highlight only one
A st Christian Right, such as the Moral Majority, are of the many forms of identity available to Middle
Ea
d le as noisy and energetic as the Islamic fundamen- Eastern women, obscuring ways that identity is
d
Mi
talist movements in Iran and Egypt. Evangeli- asserted or reclaimed, overshadowing forms of
cals in the United States are estimated at 40 – 50 struggle outside religious practices, and silenc-
million, and more than two hundred Chris- ing the secular voices that are raised against the
tian television stations and fifteen hundred region’s stifling Islamization policies. Nor should
Christian radio stations mobilize disenchanted the support preclude a critical engagement with
Americans to support fundamentalist Christian the Islamic feminists’ projects. For a critical en-
values.29 However, to my knowledge, no secular gagement with Islamic feminist projects would
feminist scholar in the United States supports a demonstrate recognition and respect for Muslim
religious program for improving women’s rights women’s political and moral agency and send a
in that country, although the discourse on the clear signal that Muslim feminists are consid-
commercialization of women’s bodies and their ered competent partners in the debate over the
reproductive capacity and the sexual exploita- limitations (or prospects) of a religious frame
tion of women and increases in various forms for woman’s liberation. A paternalist silence and
of gender-­based violence are not irrelevant to unconditional support for their agenda signals
some feminist discourses. U.S. feminists do not the opposite.
forgive the Christian fundamentalists for their
opposition to the equal rights amendment or
their call for a constitutional restriction on abor-
tion and legalization of prayers in public schools.
It is curious that some of them find virtue in the
Islamization policies in the Middle East. Why is
a return to religion’s bosom, with its clear-­cut
social and sexual division of labor and legally
imposed gender roles, good only for women in
the Middle East? This double standard explains
why, apart from women who are devoted to
Islam and Islamist projects, the most confident
support for the suitability of Islam to women’s
rights comes from outside of Islamic socie­t ies,
chiefly from secular women (and men), the West-

29. For an elaborate discussion of Christian funda-

mentalism in the United States, see Davis S. New,
Holy War: The Rise of Militant Christian, Jewish, and
Islamic Fundamentalism (Jefferson, NC: McFarland,
2002).