Islamic Feminism: The Challenges and Choices of Reinterpreting Sexual Ethics in Islamic Tradition

Abstract

Abstract

Despite what the furore over Uniform Civil Code and more recently Triple Talaq might suggest, Muslim women have very little discursive space to voice their concerns in Indian political arena. Dominant discourses on Islam and gender, including those propagated by Muslim male organisations pose Islam as a monolithic entity completely alien to the modern gender-egalitarian ideals. Feminist movements, on the other hand, hold Islam to be irrelevant at best and an obstacle at worst in promotion of gender-egalitarian norms within the community. There are concerns about the extent to which Islamic feminism can go in its demands for egalitarianism while staying within an Islamic paradigm. This paper contests those assumptions about Islam and women that foreclose any dialogue for change by exploring the role of human interpretative choices in formation and development of the Islamic religious tradition. As demonstrated by feminist exegetes, how religious texts are read is shaped deeply by human contingencies and choices. In Indian scenario, such changes are visible in formation of Muslim personal law as well. Post-independence, political contingencies within the subcontinent made it difficult to revisit the laws resulting in the loss of fluidity in the tradition. As formative scholars’ choices became enshrined in the tradition as authentic and canonical, the human element in the canonical became forgotten. The inertia to review the moral choices made by earlier authors became the hallmark of authenticity and therefore authority within the tradition. This paper argues that appreciating the role of human choices and hermeneutical flexibility involved in the formation of gender norms in Muslim societies throughout the history of Islamic legal tradition might prove effective in resolving moral dilemmas faced by modern Muslims while maintaining continuity with the tradition.