Can Islam Be a Source for Women’s Agency? How and Which Version of It?

Carolyn MoxleyRouse Engaged Surrender reminded me of Rania Kamlas’ article“Religion-based resistance strategies, politics of authenticity and professional women accountants” (2018) whose fieldwork took place in Syria, that is, my geographic area of interest. Kamlas introduces debates from Muslim feminism on resistance through egalitarian reinterpretation of the religious texts. These strategies go beyond the binaries (e.g., resistance vs. compliance) and probably some ambivalence may emerge as a result. Moxley Rouse also pointed out ambivalences in her book, allocating a whole section on ambivalence (178-180).

Kamlas is a Palestinian Muslim Arab refugee born in Syria but lives in the U.K. so her 21 respondents in Damascus might have had an imagined Western audience/gaze while defending Islam. Reflexivity is also a main part of this article (59) and is encouraged by the author. She too saw that the Islamic version of patriarchy was responsible for majority of problems. Interpreting women’s narratives only through feminist and post-colonial perspectives were not enough to explain parts where women linked their profession to faith, and how Islam was a source of inspiration to their professional work. For example, “when I wake up in the morning and read the Quran, I feel so much energy that day. This spiritual dimension is very important to my work” (65). Kamlas’ self-reflexivity (or confession to use a more mundane word) becomes very significant when faith is a source of energy and empowerment according to the respondents.

Certainly, there is a need for Muslim women scholars to interpret religious texts differently and allow women’s presence in public space and leadership. However, I wonder if this is realized, can we -as their supporters and followers- provide these scholars a safe space where freedom of expression in any topic is considered a human right, and thus respected? I am thinking of the first female imam in Denmark, Sherin Kankan who feels relatively safer when she leads the communal prayers in Maryam Mosque of Copenhagen or states in a TedTalk in Germany that the female imams are known in China since 1820s. Although there are many challenges and moments of frustrations that Khankan has been experiencing, she still enjoys practicing and defending women’s rights in Denmark.

Taghreed Jamal Al-deen (2020) Australian Young Muslim Women’s Construction of Pious and Liberal Subjectivities, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 41:2, 197-212, DOI: 10.1080/07256868.2020.1724904

This paper draws on Fadil’s(2011) work of the unveiling practices of second-generation Belgian- Maghrebi Muslim women. It explores both practices and conceptualise them as techniques of the self. It challenges the understanding of unveiling as an act of resistance to an oppressive practice and/a sign of assimilation or a product of secular governmentality. It is a  bodily act that can be interpreted as a self-technique (in the Foucauldian sense) to articulate ‘a distinct subjectivity model that has turned dominant within modernity and it interrogates the mandatory nature of veiling within Orthodox Islam. It is a matter of problematising and questioning the mandatory nature of the practice of veiling in Islam according to their own assessment of religious texts.

Piety is not always at odds with the liberal ideals of feminism but demonstrates that Islam can be a source for women’s agency: Islam and feminism can interconnect in unexpected ways.

12 women between 19 and 24 years of age were recruited for this study. All were single and currently completing undergraduate courses, except the one in grad school. They were of diverse ethnic origins (Lebanese, Somali, Indian, Sri Lankan, Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani and Turkish).  The voices of four of the participants appear because Jamal Al-deen says that they reflect the characteristics and aspirations of other women in her study. They stressed that their acquisition of  knowledge about Islam was largely through independent and private searching  for rather than following the perceived traditional and non-reflexive practices of Islam of their parents.

Their accounts led to a focus on the way their subjectivities embodied both Islamic and secular liberal values or, more specifically, the way subjectivities of religious feminine piety and secular and democratic liberalism are embodied and continually produced through practice of Islam.

Religion is not experienced here as a constraint, rather, as Saba Mahmood (2005) argues, it is a central aspect of many women’s subjectivities. These young women mobilized religion in support of critical discourses on social justice and human rights.

My conclusions: There is the spirit of Islam versus the traditional interpretations and rulings of  Islam!  There are also historical and geographical contexts and they can be used for or against the women’s roles in Islam. These call for a deep awareness in research and should prevent one jumping to any anti-Islamic conclusions.