Islam and women

“Freedom cannot be achieved unless the Women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression.” – Nelson Mandela

Islam and feminism go hand in hand even before the term feminism came into existence. Advent of Islam placed the paradise under mother’s feet [Ahmad, Nasai], became the key for a father to enter paradise [Hadith], and made a quintessential part of husbands completing his faith [Hadith]. Islam made women such integral that without woman a person Imaan would never be completed. Islam not only liberated women from the barbarianism of pre Islamic Arabia, but also place them in epitome positions in personal and public life

Islam has never differentiated between a man and women. The Quran says:
“Never will I waste the work of a worker among you,
Whether male or female, the one of you being from the other.” [Al-Qur’an 3:195]

The combination of Islam and feminism is very beautiful. Hazrat Khadija (R.A.), Hazrat Ayesha (R.A.), Bibi Fatima and many other women are the face of Islamic Feminism. If we talk about the Islamic Feminism they and seek with equality between men and women imbibed in Quran. Muslim as well as Non-Muslim nations have produced several female Political heads, Prime Ministers, Presidents and State Secretaries. In Islam Feminism is defined in Quran which is a direct text of Islam. Often feminism is considered as western movement but it can be traced back to Islam. In Islam feminism is not to reform or reconsider the Islamic values unlike modern western feminism but to promote the equality in given society. If we see the position of women in Islam in the words of Prophet Muhammad, “the negativity of disobeying the mother more than father.”

The concept of feminism is rather new and was developed in 1960s and 70s, but Islam has this concept in its roots from the beginning. Some noteworthy examples are, viz., (i) Khadija bint al-Khuwaylid, who was the first wife prophet and a brilliant trader, who did manage her own business, participated in her business contracts, own an enterprise, earned from her trade, and possessed material things in her own name. (ii) Aisha bint Abu Bakar, who is the youngest wife of Prophet and is credited of narrating more than 2000 Hadiths. (iii) Nusayba bin Ka’ab al Muzaniyaa, who fought alongside Prophet in Battle of Uhud. (iv) Sumayyah bin Khayyat, the first female martyr of Islam. (v) Rufayda bin Sa’ad al Aslaniiya, first nurse during Prophet who cared the women of Battle of Badar. (vi)  Ashifa bin Abdullah, first women to be appointed as market inspector and manager by Caliph Umar. (vii) Aisha bin Sa’ad bin Abi Waqqas, a prominent jurist scholar and teacher of Imam Malik. (vii) Fathima bint al Hasan Ibn Ali, a master of calligraphy and known for her quality of Isnads (Chain of narrations). (viii) Khawla bint Al Azwar, female warrior during the reign of Prophet. (ix) Arwa al-Sulayhi, longest reigning ruler of Yemen. (x)  Zaynab al Nafzawiyah, Queen of Berber who reigned from 1061-1107.

In Islam women wearing the “Hijab” (veil) or the “Burqah” as a practising Muslim, but often some western critiques focus more on that as contradictory to feminism. But Islam is not something which can be criticising on one or more terms. Islamic feminism is something to attempt to make a chart between them.

Keywords: Feminism, Islam, Muslim women, Empowerment, Equal rights

Despite the predominance of perspectives on women's leadership, which consistently emphasize the underrepresentation of women in virtually every sphere of political and economic life in countries around the world, very little is known about women's leadership, especially in higher education, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). This has resulted in a gap in the literature, since higher education is one area of employment where Saudi women have made progress, and in spite of complex social, religious, cultural and organisational barriers, some have broken through the glass ceiling into higher education leadership. One goal of this paper is to highlight, through a synthesis of existing literature, the current state of women's higher education leadership in Saudi Arabia. The second goal of this paper is to propose new directions for future research to address the current dearth of empirical work on women's leadership in higher education in Saudi Arabia. This may be relevant to other regions of the Middle East and elsewhere.

Some Somali majority clan girls and women receive economic and security benefits from marriage to Al-Shabaab fighters. Yet the literature treats women’s experiences monolithically, missing the role that race plays in determining the circumstances of the unions. We argue that the unions of Somali Bantu girls and women with Al-Shabaab fighters should not be referred to as ‘marriage’ but rather sexual and domestic slavery—a form of extraction by Al-Shabaab that works to ethnically cleanse the Bantu from their ancestral land. Drawing on data from an original survey conducted in 2007 of 139 Somali Bantu refugee households who fled to Kenya in the previous year, we examine the nature and extent of unions between females from different races with Al-Shabaab fighters. Women and girls from majority clans are more likely to freely marry fighters. Compared to majority clan females, Somali Bantu girls are enslaved by Al-Shabaab fighters at younger ages and typically remain with their own families rather than moving to the man’s household, contrary to Somali’s patrilineal marriage customs. Al-Shabaab fighters do not claim the children they have with Somali Bantu girls and women, whom they despise as a racially-distinct minority with low social status. Our work underscores the need to avoid the term ‘marriage’ when referring to the sexual slavery of minorities in Somalia by Al-Shabaab and for the international community to both investigate claims of ethnic cleansing as well as support the fledgling Somali government in establishing a system of rule of law.

How much can fourteen undergraduate students learn from a six-week summer course about Islam?

One of the course assignments in a six-week undergraduate Summer course on Islamic Traditions at the University of California, Santa Barbara was for the students to maintain their notes on all aspects of the course as a collaboratively authored living document that would be continually updated and reorganized to present their total understanding of the course topics in the form of a textbook.

Their remarkable final product is presented here, without any significant changes to the content.

This volume offers educators the valuable opportunity to directly perceive what students took away from an introductory undergraduate course on Islam. How did the students understand the assigned readings? What topics did students engage with most enthusiastically, and why? What expermental teaching styles were employed in the course, and how effective were they as means to support the learning objectives of the course?

Collaboratively authored by Sean Knight, Trent Davidson, Paul Pineda, Thao Nguyen, Anthony Khoa A. Tran, Leslie J.Acero, Sara Moretti, Alexandra Kineret, Blake Keane, Mingfei Xu, Afreen Chaus, Ramzi Bekeri, Kaitlyn Woodward, and Aniela Grych.

Edited by Brendan Newlon.

Forewords by Ahmad Atif Ahmad, Ovamir Anjum, Jamaal Diwan, and Suheil Laher.

Il volume accoglie le ricerche di studiose/i affermate/i e di giovani che hanno iniziato a cimentarsi nella ricerca accademica ed è strutturato come un insieme di sguardi che osservano, da più angolazioni, un argomento complesso e articolato qual è quello della violenza di genere, soffermandosi su alcune delle peculiari modalità
tramite cui, nelle aree trattate, la violenza si riverbera sulle donne. Si è cercato di offrire un ampio ventaglio di prospettive, alcune delle quali sono meno note ai non specialisti, mantenendo tuttavia un linguaggio accessibile a un pubblico più esteso.
Il lettore che si avventurerà nel percorso tracciato nel volume si troverà di fronte a ricerche che mettono a fuoco numerose strategie di depotenziamento del femminile e altrettante forme di resistenza; si confronterà con le difficoltà che caratterizzano la vita delle transessuali in Iran e delle hijra in India, conoscerà nuove voci letterarie
che trattano il tema della violenza familiare-affettiva ed etnico-nazionale-confessionale. In questo volume si esplorano infatti le molteplici sfaccettature della violenza domestica, verbale e sessuale, addentrandosi nel territorio della sopraffazione e della coercizione subite dalle donne nelle realtà tribali, così come nelle retoriche misogine che si esprimono anche attraverso i social network nell’India dei nostri giorni.
Tuttavia questo libro non parla solamente delle donne, né intende rivolgersi soltanto alle donne. Sullo sfondo esso interroga anche gli uomini, le ideologie, l’operato delle istituzioni e coloro che continuano a esercitare, tramite molteplici forme di violenza, poteri e privilegi che limitano, quando non eradicano completamente, la libertà
delle donne in seno alla famiglia e nella società.
Ci sembra inoltre opportuno fare qualche precisazione circa la struttura del libro, che si articola in tre sezioni tematiche: diritto, sessualità, potere. All’interno di queste sezioni si susseguono studi eterogenei che danno conto della trasversalità attraverso cui il tema della violenza è trattato nell’accademia e nei dibattiti politici attualmente
in corso. Non entriamo qui nel merito dei singoli articoli, rimandando piuttosto alle dettagliate considerazioni riportate nell’Introduzione di Maria Immacolata Macioti. Ci preme invece sottolineare come la millenaria questione della violenza sulle donne, narrata in composite modalità sia nella letteratura che nelle cronache storiche
classiche, si trovi oggi al centro dell’attenzione degli studiosi, con indagini multidisciplinari che spaziano dall’ambito delle letterature alla storiografia, dalla linguistica alla sociologia, passando per la giurisprudenza, la psicologia e per numerose altre discipline. Ne danno prova le attività di ricerca, accademiche e non, che vengono regolarmente condotte nei paesi esaminati nel presente libro. Molte di queste ricerche non riguardano soltanto il passato ma anche le società odierne e i loro sistemi giuridici. Per tale ragione abbiamo ritenuto significativo aprire il volume proprio con una sezione tematica dedicata al ‘diritto’. Infatti è proprio il diritto a fornire i presupposti grazie ai quali la violenza può essere arginata, specialmente quando questa si consuma all’interno delle relazioni familiari; attraverso le richieste di modifiche alle leggi che regolano il rapporto tra i coniugi, o varando leggi che criminalizzino le violenze inflitte alle donne in famiglia, è il diritto a intervenire facendo da ponte fra il pubblico e il privato.