Islam Gender And Democracy In Comparative Perspective

The relationship between secularism, democracy, religion, and gender equality has been a complex one across Western democracies and still remains contested. When we turn to Muslim countries, the situation is even more multifaceted. In the views of many western commentators, the question of Women Rights is the litmus test for Muslim societies in the age of democracy and liberalism. Especially since the Arab Awakening, the issue is usually framed as the opposition between liberal advocates of secular democracy and religious opponents of women's full equality. Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective critically re-engages this too simple binary opposition by reframing the debate around Islam and women's rights within a broader comparative literature. Bringing together leading scholars from a range of disciplines, it examines the complex and contingent historical relationships between religion, secularism, democracy, law, and gender equality. Part One addresses the nexus of religion, law, gender, and democracy through different disciplinary perspectives (sociology, anthropology, political science, law). Part Two localizes the implementation of this nexus between law, gender, and democracy and provides contextualized responses to questions raised in Part One. The contributors explore the situation of Muslim women's rights in minority conditions to shed light on the gender politics in the modernization of the nation and to ponder on the role of Islam in gender inequality across different Muslim countries.

This volume combines rigorous empirical and theoretical analyses with political engagement to look beyond reductive short-hands that ignore the historical evolution and varieties of Islamic doctrine and that deny the complexities of Muslim societies' encounters with modernity itself. Are Islam and democracy compatible? Can we shed the language of 'Islam vs. the West' for new political imaginaries? The authors analyze struggles over political legitimacy since the Arab Spring and the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS in their historical and political complexity across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. Distinguishing multiculturalism from interculturalism and understanding multiple modernities, philosophers in the volume tease out the complexities of civilizational encounters. The volume also shows how the Paris massacres or the Danish caricature controversy do not remain confined to Europe but influence struggles and confrontations within Muslim societies. Gender and Islam are addressed from a comparative perspective bringing into conversation not only the experience of different Muslim countries with Islamic law but also by analysing Jewish family law.

The book, Economic Empowerment of Women in the Islamic World, discusses the economic, social, and political rights and status of women in Islam, which is theoretically given by the Islamic Jurisprudence (Shariah law). The chapters in this volume will address historical practices in comparison to the status of women in the contemporary Muslim world. Men and women in Islam, regardless of their age, social class, and education, are equal as citizens and individuals, but not identical in their rights and responsibilities. It can be observed from Islamic history that in the early age of Islam, women were given full confidence, trust, and high responsibilities in leadership, educational guidance, and decision-making.This volume will try to clarify the confusion in the status of the women in Islam that is presented by the media, as it is assumed that theoretical Islamic empowerment of women bears little relation to the real conditions of women in modern Muslim societies. It has been widely claimed in the media that Muslim women suffer more than men in Muslim societies and communities in terms of insecurity, domestic abuse, and low access to education and medical care. It is also stated in the press and media that absence of good governance also results in gender inequality and violation of the rights of Muslim women.This volume also aims to provide the solutions for the empowerment of women in the Islamic world. We assumed that without good governance, the status of women is not likely to improve. Muslim women have the potential to play a fundamental role in curbing corruption, social ills, violence, and crime in the Muslim world. This volume will make the case that in order to achieve stability and prosperity, the government must ensure a platform for women to participate in decision-making and hence benefit from the rights they are accorded in Islam.By covering a range of perspectives on the economic lives of Muslim women around the world, it hopes to shed light on the problems faced and to offer possible solutions to the empowerment of women in the Islamic world.

In Turkey, no secular party has approximated the high levels of membership and intense activism of women within the Islamist Refah (Welfare) Party. Rethinking Islam and Liberal Democracy examines the experiences of these women, who represented an unprecedented phenomenon within Turkish politics. Using in-depth interviews, Yeşim Arat reveals how the women of the party broadened the parameters of democratic participation and challenged preconceived notions of what Islam can entail in a secular democratic polity. The women of the party successfully mobilized large groups of allegedly apolitical women by crossing the boundaries between the social and the political, reaching them through personal networks cultivated in private spaces. The experiences of these women show the contentious relationship between liberal democracy and Islam, where liberalism that prioritizes the individual can transform, coexist, or remain in tension with Islam that prioritizes a communal identity legitimized by a sacred God.

In the face of Islam's own internal struggles, it is not easy to see who we should support and how. This report provides detailed descriptions of subgroups, their stands on various issues, and what those stands may mean for the West. Since the outcomes can matter greatly to international community, that community might wish to influence them by providing support to appropriate actors. The author recommends a mixed approach of providing specific types of support to those who can influence the outcomes in desirable ways.

The Islamic world has a poor record in terms of modernization and democracy. However, the source of this situation is not Islam, but factors including colonialism, international economic and trading systems, and the role of the military, among others. This book identifies key factors that contribute to Islam's current predicament. (Adapted from back cover).

The Islamic world has a poor record in terms of modernization and democracy. However, the source of this situation is not religion, but factors including colonialism, international economic and trading systems, and the role of the military, among others. Recognizing these themes allows the consideration of possible remedies for change in the Muslim world. The Islamic world has a poor record in terms of modernization and democracy. However, the source of this situation is not religion—Islam—but rather factors including colonialism, international economic and trading systems, and the role of the military, among others. Recognizing these themes allows the consideration of possible remedies for change in the Muslim world. The distinguished scholars contributing to this volume identify key factors—some intrinsic to the Muslim world, and some external—that contribute to Islam's current predicament. Contrary to much prevailing thought and opinion, Islam is neither monolithic nor impervious to change. It is neither anti-democratic nor inherently anti-modernization. Islam itself, as this book shows, is not the root cause of the malaise of the Islamic world.

Following a period of rapid political change, both globally and in relation to the Middle East and South Asia, this collection sets new terms of reference for an analysis of the intersections between global, state, non-state and popular actors and their contradictory effects on the politics of gender.The volume charts the shifts in academic discourse and global development practice that shape our understanding of gender both as an object of policy and as a terrain for activism. Nine individual case studies systematically explore how struggles for political control and legitimacy determine both the ways in which dominant gender orders are safeguarded and the diverse forms of resistance against them.

"Drawing on a wealth of scholarship by second-wave feminists and historians of religion, race, and colonialism, Scott shows that the gender equality invoked today as a fundamental and enduring principle was not originally associated with the term "secularism" when it first entered the lexicon in the nineteenth century. In fact, the inequality of the sexes was fundamental to the articulation of the separation of church and state that inaugurated Western modernity. Scott points out that Western nation-states imposed a new order of women's subordination, assigning them to a feminized familial sphere meant to complement the rational masculine realms of politics and economics. It was not until the question of Islam arose in the late twentieth century that gender equality became a primary feature of the discourse of secularism"-- Publisher's description