Abstract
This chapter goes through Muslim women’s image in Europe from the colonial area until the neo-colonial contemporary image. This chapter follows Gunther Dietz’s approach in analyzing the hijab practice. First, to delineate the subject, which consists of two elements in this book: 1) European Muslim woman and 2) the hijab. Then, to analyze the reasons behind considering these two subjects as “problematic” in Europe. Finally, this chapter proposes Maria Caterina La Barbera’s intersectional feminist approach as a potential solution for an inclusive feminist discourse. The analysis of this section covers the dispute on faith and traditions among feminists, the confusion on the term Islamic feminism, and the legislative texts in the Islamic resources that demand the veiling practice. Finally, this chapter provides a comparative analysis between the Islamic religious legislation and the UDHE on women’s right to vestment. This chapter finds out that the different understandings of women’s sexuality and gender equality in the public sphere between the Islamic approach and the secular approach are the main trigger of dispute.
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Notes
- 1.
Badran (2002).
- 2.
- 3.
Haddad (2007).
- 4.
Hoodfar (1992).
- 5.
- 6.
De Beauvoir (1952).
- 7.
Muñoz and Grosfoguel (2012).
- 8.
For example, Syrian government, led by the only political party in the country, Al-Baèz; banned the hijab of the students but not teachers at the public schools until 1999, when the president, Bashar Al-Assad, the son; passed a Republican Decree that allowed veiling.
- 9.
Abu-Lughod (2002).
- 10.
The right to vestment is included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Art. 19 UNDHR. https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.
- 11.
Khader (2016).
- 12.
Mahmood (2005).
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
La Barbera (2007).
- 16.
La Barbera uses this term as an alternative of “the multiracial feminism” to avoid the racial elements of the equation.
- 17.
La Barbera (2009).
- 18.
Sibai (2018).
- 19.
La barbera indicates that African women had been enforced to break down their experiences, to provide one fragment of it as a “meaningful whole” and give up all other constituent parts of themselves. By which, gender essentialism reduced multiple discrimination to a problem of arithmetical sum.
- 20.
The term Islamic feminism appeared in Iran by Afsaneh Najmabadeh and Ziba Mir-Hosseini, and Turkia, Yesim Arat and Feride Acar, to express a new feminist paradigm by the mid of the 90s. The term is circulated by Muslims across the world.
- 21.
Patriarchy is a historically specific mode of rule by fathers 42 that, in its religious and traditional forms, assumes a real as well as symbolic continuum between the ‘‘Father/fathers’’ that is, between a patriarchalized view of God as Father/male, and a theory of father-right, extending to the husband’s claim to rule over his wife and children (Barlas 2006: 12).
- 22.
A broader definition of patriarchy is as a politics of sexual differentiation that privileges males by ‘‘transforming biological sex into politicized gender, which prioritizes the male while making the woman different (unequal), less than, or the ‘Other’’’ (Barlas 2006: 12).
- 23.
Barlas (2006).
- 24.
Engineer (2007).
- 25.
Amanda Keddie signifies that Muslim women voice is silent in Australia. And it is imperative to provide greater opportunities for listening to Muslim women and girls who are who are finding places of agency within the religious, gendered and racialized discourse that shape their identities, it is the voices in the current environment that tend to be silenced (Keddie, 2016).
- 26.
Tohidi draws a difference between the connotation of the term “Islamic feminism” and “Muslim feminism”. She states: “I personally find the term ‘Muslim feminist/m’(a Muslim who is feminist) less troubling and more pertinent to current realties than the term ‘Islamic feminism.’ The term ‘Islamic feminism,’on the other hand, seems to be more appropriate to be used and conceived as an analytical concept in feminist research and feminist theology, or as a discourse. The definition of either term, however, is difficult since a Muslim feminist (believer) would probably define it differently from a laic social scientist like myself” (2003: 138). I use the “Islamic feminism2 to refer to the movement and “Muslim feminist” to refer to the individuals (see explanation in the introduction).
- 27.
Reported in Omaima Abu Baker “Islamic feminism? What’s in a name?” (2001: 4).
- 28.
Abortion is not forbidden in Islam. It is restricted by specific conditions related to the mother’s and the baby’s situations. The court in Morroco did not assure if Ra’uf had an abortion or not. And if yes, no one questioned if it was carried out through the Islamic conditions.
- 29.
Islamweb.net Fatwa number:30898. https://fatwa.islamweb.net/fatwa/index.php?page=showfatwa&lang=&Option=FatwaId&Id=%3Cspan%20style=%27color:red%27%20%3E30898%3C/span%3E.
- 30.
Boulos (2019b).
- 31.
The Pakistani and Syrian representors in the drafting committee were form secular background. The Saudi Arabian representor was a Lebanese Christian. It is to say, the Islam thoughts in the UDHR was minimal. Boulos asserts on the importance of a cross culutral dialogue to over come the lack of Islamic perspective in the UDHR.
- 32.
Boulos (2019a).
- 33.
It is important to point out that, from an Islamic perspective, the Quran can not be translated, since God's way of revelation in the Arabic language is not something incidental, but rather something essential to its meaning. Translating the Quranic text will decay the depth of its meanings. Therefore, we have to keep in mind that the verses that will be reproduced throughout the text are but an interpretation of the Koran.
- 34.
The English translación is adopted from Mohammad Asad interpretation of the Holy Quran.
- 35.
These two verses also lead us to another social reality at the time of revelation. Muslim women lived with men in the time of the prophet, without limiting them to the domestic space, or being hidden behind an integral veil. Muslim received these verses to regulate existing (gender) public relations.
- 36.
The verse is the following: “But if any of you devoutly obeys God and his Apostle and does good deeds, on her shall We bestow her reward twice-over: for We shall have readied for her a most excellent sustance [in life to come] (Al-Noor: 31).
- 37.
Homa Hoodfar (1992: 40) opines that all the narrations of the hijab in the Quranic text are directed to the prophet’s wives. Yet, the four Islamic shools indicates that not all of them are directed to the wives of the prophets. Only those which are referred to in this text. Hoodfar also cited the wrong verses in her article.
- 38.
When this verse was revealed, Muslim women immediately tore off their cloaks to cover. Muslim women met the criteria of this verse immediately.
- 39.
Amer (2014).
- 40.
Gómez (2019).
- 41.
Find the full text in https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.
- 42.
Asad (2003).
- 43.
Bhargava and Reifeld (2005).
- 44.
Habermas (1991).
- 45.
- 46.
Amiraux (2007).
- 47.
Scott (2009).
- 48.
- 49.
Moore (2007).
- 50.
Entwistle (2015).
- 51.
Hopkins and Greenwood (2013).
- 52.
- 53.
- 54.
I use the word “claim” because, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, the Secular dimension of the Euro-identity is nourished in an opposition to the Muslim visibility in the public sphere.
- 55.
- 56.
Eseverri C.M., Khir-Allah G. (Working paper) Controlling Muslim Youth Association through Unique representation, Complutense University.
- 57.
Jouili (2009).
- 58.
Amiraux (2007).
- 59.
Esposito (1999).
- 60.
Balibar (2004).
- 61.
Cesari (1999).
- 62.
Alvi (2013).
- 63.
Ozouf (1995).
- 64.
Fassin (2005).
- 65.
The Muslim identity is above the gender identity, no difference in front of God between men or women. The preference standards is based on the good deeds of each. Although this is not well recognized in several Muslim countries because of the power of traditions, this self-identification dominates the construction of Euro-Muslims identity who learn “pure” Islam away from traditions.
- 66.
In the Spanish context, at least in Madrid, parents count a positive point for the elementary schools that ban the mini skirt and shorts.
- 67.
Hammoudi (2006).
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Khir-Allah, G. (2021). Intersectional Euro-Muslim Women: Western Political and Feminist Responses. In: Framing Hijab in the European Mind. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1653-2_3
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