Abstract

In what way Islam continues to shape and influence women’s capabilities (or simply what they can do and be) is a highly contentious issue. In light of the growing popularity of Islamic studies around the world, practical and scholarly debates about Islam’s consequences on women’s lives and situations in Muslim societies have increasingly focused on how the state and various groups within it are appropriating gender and identity discourses for political objectives. This is particularly marked in discourses concerning the impact of fundamentalist Islam’ (see for instance Saikal 2004; ul Haq 1986; Muzaffar 1986) on women’s lives. In many instances, the place of women has become the ‘first battleground’ in a society’s pursuit of cultural and religious renewal (Anwar in Frith 2002, 3). The tension between Islam and women has fascinated social science scholars in contemporary times because of the implicit and explicit nuances observed in these processes of female resistance, acceptance, and negotiation.

The appropriation of gender discourses by Muslim scholars, jurists, and teachers has often rendered Muslim women either as passive or active objects who are mere recipients of religious perceptions, interpretations, ideology and beliefs, rather than as active participants in their own identity formation. While this is not different from the influence played by other organized religions like Christianity, Islam certainly dictates in a more institutionalized way how Muslim women should think and act.

This paper explores some of these nuances through two general questions. First, in what way do Muslim women identify themselves in terms of career choices, family and society? And second, what can they actually do and be? What are their perceptions in terms of their economic, political and social rights? An attempt is made first by surfacing core issues implicated in the discourse on women’s identity processes across a variety of Muslim societies. While it is true that there is not one Islam and therefore not one Muslim female experience, the authors believe it is still possible first, to determine how Islam’s influence on women’s rights are perceived by Muslim women themselves to be different from that of other organized religions. Second, it is also possible to pinpoint similarities in their experiences by virtue of living under Islam regardless of their geographic locations and local backgrounds. Later in the paper, several recommendations are advanced for more in-depth studies of this kind.