The position of women in Islam remains deeply contentious. While conservative elements both within Islam and among its Western critics continue to claim that Islamic law and values are fundamentally incompatible with modern notions of gender equality, since the 1980s there has been a growing body of scholarship which seeks to make the case for feminism and gender justice within a distinctly Islamic paradigm. In Islamic Feminism, Mulki Al-Sharmani examines the goals, approaches and methodologies which key scholars have adopted in their efforts at crafting an Islamic feminist discourse. Encompassing scholars from both the Islamic world and the Muslim diaspora, ranging from the pioneering scholar activist Amina Wadud to Egypt's Omaima Abou Bakr, the book also looks at how these scholars have translated their work into meaningful political action through groups such as the global Musawah movement and the Egyptian Women and Memory Forum. Crucially, Al-Sharmani also shows that Islamic feminism is a phenomenon which extends far beyond academia. Drawing on the author's own extensive research and interviews with women in Egypt, the UK, Malaysia, Finland and elsewhere, the book explores how ordinary Muslim women in both the West and the Islamic world are increasingly asserting their autonomy and challenging patriarchal interpretations of their religion, as well as exploring the linkages between Islamic feminist scholarship and the realities of these women's lived experiences. In the process, Islamic Feminism not only uncovers new directions for Islamic feminist scholarship, but upends many of our preconceptions about Islam and the role of women within it.

This book examines the needs, aspirations, strategies, and challenges of transnational Muslim migrants in Europe with regard to family practices such as marriage, divorce, and parenting. Critically re-conceptualizing 'wellbeing' and unpacking its multiple dimensions in the context of Muslim families, it investigates how migrants make sense of and draw on different norms, laws, and regimes of knowledge as they navigate different aspects of family relations and life in a transnational social space. With attention to issues such as registration of marriage, civil versus religious marriage, spousal roles and rights, polygamy, parenting, child wellbeing, and everyday security, the authors offer national and comparative case studies of Muslim families from different parts of the world, covering different family bonds and relations, within both extended and nuclear families. Based on empirical research in the Nordic region and further afield, this volume affords a more complete understanding of the practices of transnational migrant families, as well as the processes through which family relations and rights are negotiated between family members and with state institutions and laws, whilst contributing to the growing literature on migrant wellbeing. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social policy with interests in migration and transnational communities, wellbeing, and the family.

This book examines the needs, aspirations, strategies, and challenges of transnational Muslim migrants in Europe with regard to family practices such as marriage, divorce, and parenting. Critically re-conceptualizing 'wellbeing' and unpacking its multiple dimensions in the context of Muslim families, it investigates how migrants make sense of and draw on different norms, laws, and regimes of knowledge as they navigate different aspects of family relations and life in a transnational social space. With attention to issues such as registration of marriage, civil versus religious marriage, spousal roles and rights, polygamy, parenting, child wellbeing, and everyday security, the authors offer national and comparative case studies of Muslim families from different parts of the world, covering different family bonds and relations, within both extended and nuclear families. Based on empirical research in the Nordic region and further afield, this volume affords a more complete understanding of the practices of transnational migrant families, as well as the processes through which family relations and rights are negotiated between family members and with state institutions and laws, whilst contributing to the growing literature on migrant wellbeing. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social policy with interests in migration and transnational communities, wellbeing, and the family.

In Egypt's modern history, reform of personal status laws has often formed an integral part of political, cultural, and religious contestations among different factions of society. From the beginning of the twenty-first century, two significant reforms were introduced in Egyptian personal status laws: women's right to petition for no-fault judicial divorce law (khul') and the new mediation-based family courts.Legal Reform and Gender Justice examines the interplay between legal reform and gender norms and practices. It examines the processes of advocating for, and contesting the khul' and new family courts laws, shedding light on the agendas and strategies of the various actors involved. It also examines the ways in which women and men have made use of these legal reforms; how judges and other court personnel have interpreted and implemented them; and how the reforms may have impacted women and men's understandings, expectations, and strategies when navigating marriage and spousal roles.Drawing on an extensive four-year field study, Al-Sharmani highlights the complexities and mixed impacts of legal reform, not only as a mechanism of claiming gender rights but also as a system of meanings that shape, destabilize, or transform gender norms and practices.

The model of marriage constructed in classical Islamic jurisprudence rests on patriarchal ethics that privilege men. This worldview persists in gender norms and family laws in many Muslim contexts, despite reforms introduced over the past few decades. In this volume, a diverse group of scholars explore how egalitarian marital relations can be supported from within Islamic tradition. Brought together by the Musawah movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, they examine ethics and laws related to marriage and gender relations from the perspective of the Qur’an, Sunna, Muslim legal tradition, historical practices and contemporary law reform processes. Collectively they conceptualize how Muslim marriages can be grounded in equality, mutual well-being and the core Qur’anic principles of ‘adl (justice) and ihsan (goodness and beauty).

Both Muslims and non-Muslims see women in most Muslim countries as suffering from social, economic, and political discrimination, treated by law and society as second-class citizens subject to male authority. This discrimination is attributed to Islam and Islamic law, and since the late 19th century there has been a mass of literature tackling this issue. Recently, exciting new feminist research has been challenging gender discrimination and male authority from within Islamic legal tradition: this book presents some important results from that research. The contributors all engage critically with two central juristic concepts; rooted in the Qur'an, they lie at the basis of this discrimination. One refers to a husband's authority over his wife, his financial responsibility toward her, and his superior status and rights. The other is male family members' right and duty of guardianship over female members (e.g., fathers over daughters when entering into marriage contracts) and the privileging of fathers over mothers in guardianship rights over their children. The contributors, brought together by the Musawah global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, include Omaima Abou-Bakr, Asma Lamrabet, Ayesha Chaudhry, Sa'diyya Shaikh, Lynn Welchman, Marwa Sharefeldin, Lena Larsen and Amina Wadud.

This ground-breaking collection investigates the relationship between feminist activism and legal reform as a pathway to gender justice and social change.Since the advent of feminist movements in the Global South and North, legal reform has been a popular and yet contentious vehicle of seeking women's rights and empowerment. Accordingly, law has been an important focus of feminist scholarship. This important book will contribute to such scholarship, with comparative insights drawn from field-based research on the processes, the challenges, and the outcomes of legal reform and feminist activism from a number of countries in different regions of the world. Feminist Activism, Women's Rights and Legal Reform brings together cases from Middle East, Latin America and Asia of the successes and failures of reform efforts concerning the promulgation and implementation of new family laws and domestic violence codes.

This ground-breaking collection investigates the relationship between feminist activism and legal reform as a pathway to gender justice and social change. Since the advent of feminist movements legal reform has been a popular and yet contentious vehicle for seeking women's rights and empowerment. This important book looks at comparative insights drawn from field-based research on the processes, the challenges, and the outcomes of legal reform and feminist activism. Feminist Activism, Women's Rights, and Legal Reform brings together cases from Middle East, Latin America, and Asia of the successes and failures of reform efforts concerning the promulgation and implementation of new family laws and domestic violence codes.