Islamic Feminism(s) in the Mediterranean Area: a Hermeneutical Approach

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies (JBNES) is an English language journal for the study of the complex historical, economic, political, diplomatic, cultural and security issues that confront the region of the Balkans and the Near East. JBNES constructs an academic forum to bring together disparate scholarly perspectives and publishes research on the nation-states of the Ballkans, Central Asia, the Middle East and the Caucasus, from 1945 to the present day. The journal encourages historical research, comparative approaches, critical scholarship and a diversity of international relations, political economy and geo-political/geo-strategic views on the region.This article forms part of a special issue: Women in the Mediterranean.

Abstract:

This article aims at questioning some conceptual assumptions which frame the current debate on Islamic feminism. Firstly, there is the assumption regarding the existing structural incompatibility between the Qur’an and women’s rights that needs to be tested by means of methodical hermeneutical tools.

Secondly, the thesis affirming the uniqueness and univocity of the movement should also be questioned. The article argues that the syntagma ‘Islamic feminism’ should be approached as the ‘indicator’ of an extremely fluid, dynamic and pluralistic set of phenomena which has not yet assumed, and may never assume, its final conformation.