Turkish women and Islam. Fighting free

The paradox of devout Muslim feminists

IN MANY places, Muslim women struggle to break free of curbs imposed in the name of Islam. In officially secular Turkey, pious ladies are waging a different war: they want to practise Islam as their conscience dictates (and so to cover their heads) but also to free the faith from male misogyny.

Take Hidayet Tuksal, a headscarved teacher of religion. While studying at Ankara University's theology faculty in the 1980s, she was disturbed by her male professors' reading of the Prophet's teachings on women. At the religious high school where she later taught, she grew angry. Male instructors treated female colleagues “like dimwits” and berated female students over petty things like the colour of their socks. So she studied more closely what the Prophet had actually said.

Her findings, collated in a doctoral thesis and book, convinced her that Islam did not see women as “second-class beings ” - -as many men believed. Mrs Tuksal is one of a small band of Islamist feminists who roam Turkey's rural backwaters and urban ghettos, urging women to seek education and insist on their rights. In their feminist view of Islam, gays and non-Muslims should not be ostracised either.

Islamist hard-liners resent these feisty ladies. More worldly feminists look down on them because they wear headscarves. But secular feminists ought to be grateful, for female empowerment has more chance of being accepted when preached by ladies in scarves. In future it may be easier for secular and devout feminists to work together. A live-and-let-live attitude to headscarves, a deeply divisive issue, is gaining ground. Surveys show that over 70% of Turks oppose the ban on the headscarf at universities and public offices.

It may also be a good sign that Mrs Tuksal and her friends have begun a joint education project with secular feminists and the Religious Affairs Directorate, a state agency. The project involves training 3,000 state-employed female preachers and Koran instructors to propagate women's education; and also publicising recent changes in the penal code.

Tailored to groom Turkey for Europe, the changes include stiffer penalties for crimes against women, including rape, “honour killings” of women deemed to have besmirched the family name, and forced virginity tests, imposed by teachers, relatives or other male bullies. When facing such practices, Turkey's women close ranks, whatever they believe.

The paradox of devout Muslim feminists.