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Originally a Ph. D. Thesis--University of London. / Previously published as Rábiʻa [: the life & work of Rábiʻa and other women mystics in Islám] by Oneworld, 1994. Includes bibliographical references (p. [237]-241) and index.

Originally a Ph. D. thesis--University of London. / Previously published as Rábiʻa [: the life & work of Rábiʻa and other women mystics in Islám] by Oneworld, 1994. Includes bibliographical references (p. [237]-241) and index.

Women’s rights in Islam became a major subject after the third feminist movement in the United States. When feminism spread globally, many Islamic scholars connected it to Islam. Islamic feminism is a term that takes most of its ideologies from the two primary sources of Islam – the Quran and the Sunnah. This qualitative research explained the bias directed towards women in Islam by using objective reasoning through examples as well as by encompassing any misinterpretation of views regarding women’s rights in Islam. The method used was a content analysis. The findings were that Islam is a feminist religion. While Islam provides Muslim women with full rights, U.S. and Saudi Arabian cultures have impeded Islamic feminism. Lastly, the U.S. feminism started as a movement by women to empower women. However, Islamic feminism first focused on the rights of all human beings, then concentrated on women in Islam. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The subject and the scope of this study are the challenges faced by Muslim women in contemporary societies as presented by the four prominent authors: Leila Ahmed, Elizabeth Fernea, Fatima Mernissi and Amina Wadud. The methodology applied to the literary analysis is the feminist-qualitative research approach in religious studies with specific reference to Islamic feminist studies. Many Muslim women scholars criticise the study of Third World women as objects of study-cases who are rarely heeded as serious scholars. Misconceptions about Islam and Muslim women are common in Western society. Previous studies have not dealt with the issue satisfactorily and failed to provide a holistic picture. The challenges faced by Muslim women have been interpreted against a Western feminist framework, thus causing more harm than good. The resultant predicament is the subject of this study in which Muslim women’s own attitudes and responses to their present circumstances and future prospects are explored. How and why Muslim women are challenged? How do they envisage the resolution of these challenges? The purpose of this study is to provide a framework that can give an adequate account of challenges as seen by Muslim women and to evaluate strategies that can provide suitable solutions to these challenges. Firstly, an objective Giele/Smock/Engineer framework was developed with reference to the most pressing challenges (articulated in well-documented definitions and descriptions) faced by Muslim women in contemporary societies. These key issues of women’s rights on political participation, education, work, family, and social participation were discussed and analysed in the light of this women-centred approach with specific reference to the writings of four prominent women authors: Leila Ahmed, Elizabeth Fernea, Fatima Mernissi and Amina Wadud. Each author has brought her own particular perspective and area of expertise into the discussion – sometimes arguing among with the other authors in a virtual ‘roundtable’ discussion; at times joining hands in mutual agreement. Finally, Muslim women’s struggle against injustice was subjected to critical scrutiny with particular attention to common strategies and solutions that the four authors have used and developed in the light of the modern debate. It is in the latter discussion that the study reached its ultimate goal by determining how the challenges have been met. Moreover, Islamic feminism was assessed to determine how it related to and coped with social change and how effective it has been in seeking to assert rights of and find justice for women through historical, anthropological, socio-political and hermeneutical approach. / Religious Studies / D. Th. (Religious Studies)

Often pointed to as the region’s model secular state, Turkey provides an instructive case study in how nationalism, in the name of conjuring ‘unity’, often produces the opposite effect. Indeed, the production of nationalism can create fractures amongst, as well as politicize, certain segments of a population, such as minority groups and women. This dissertation examines the long-term and present-day impacts on nationalist unity of a largely understudied event, the annexation of the border-city of Antakya from Syria in 1939, and its implications on the Arab Alawite population. In doing so, it deconstructs the dominant Turkish narrative on the annexation, rewrites the narrative drawing on oral history from the ground, and it shows how nation-building is a masculinist project that relies on powerfully gendered language through studying the national archives. The heart of the project, however, remains the investigation of the political, social, and religious subjectivity of Arab Alawite women, with an emphasis on resistance to the structures and practices sustained by the state and patriarchy. The Arab Alawites, once numerically dominant in the Antakya region, are now an ethno-religious minority group within the Turkish/Sunni-dominated state structure. Although Antakya was the last territory to join Turkey in 1939, ever since that time many of its Alawites have resisted assimilation through covert, yet peaceful, methods. Through this research, I show that a multiplicity of forces have increased the politicization of the Antiochian Alawite community and broadened their demands upon the Turkish state. My research highlights Alawite women’s leadership as a key driver of this process, thanks to the large-scale out migration of Alawite men, the increased socio-economic independence of Alawite women, and the perception of more progressive gender ideals being held by the members of this Muslim sect, when compared to those of nearby Sunni Turkish women. This dissertation relies on a postcolonial and feminist geopolitical analysis of the Turkish nationalist project to examine how the Turkish state has historically viewed Antakya and the Arab Alawites and how, in return, the experience and collective social and political memory of Alawites was formed. By utilizing innovative methodologies, this research shows how Alawite women are resisting/rewriting/reconfiguring political and social structures through everyday actions that shift the discourse on minorities and women on local and national scales.

The subject and the scope of this study are the challenges faced by Muslim women in contemporary societies as presented by the four prominent authors: Leila Ahmed, Elizabeth Fernea, Fatima Mernissi and Amina Wadud. The methodology applied to the literary analysis is the feminist-qualitative research approach in religious studies with specific reference to Islamic feminist studies. Many Muslim women scholars criticise the study of Third World women as objects of study-cases who are rarely heeded as serious scholars. Misconceptions about Islam and Muslim women are common in Western society. Previous studies have not dealt with the issue satisfactorily and failed to provide a holistic picture. The challenges faced by Muslim women have been interpreted against a Western feminist framework, thus causing more harm than good. The resultant predicament is the subject of this study in which Muslim women’s own attitudes and responses to their present circumstances and future prospects are explored. How and why Muslim women are challenged? How do they envisage the resolution of these challenges? The purpose of this study is to provide a framework that can give an adequate account of challenges as seen by Muslim women and to evaluate strategies that can provide suitable solutions to these challenges. Firstly, an objective Giele/Smock/Engineer framework was developed with reference to the most pressing challenges (articulated in well-documented definitions and descriptions) faced by Muslim women in contemporary societies. These key issues of women’s rights on political participation, education, work, family, and social participation were discussed and analysed in the light of this women-centred approach with specific reference to the writings of four prominent women authors: Leila Ahmed, Elizabeth Fernea, Fatima Mernissi and Amina Wadud. Each author has brought her own particular perspective and area of expertise into the discussion – sometimes arguing among with the other authors in a virtual ‘roundtable’ discussion; at times joining hands in mutual agreement. Finally, Muslim women’s struggle against injustice was subjected to critical scrutiny with particular attention to common strategies and solutions that the four authors have used and developed in the light of the modern debate. It is in the latter discussion that the study reached its ultimate goal by determining how the challenges have been met. Moreover, Islamic feminism was assessed to determine how it related to and coped with social change and how effective it has been in seeking to assert rights of and find justice for women through historical, anthropological, socio-political and hermeneutical approach. / Religious Studies / D. Th. (Religious Studies)

Quels sont les modèles sexués prônés dans les discours islamiques par les acteurs religieux issus des courants fondamentalistes, conscientisateur des Frères Musulmans et néosalafiste, à Bruxelles? Préconisent-ils un rapport hiérarchique, complémentaire ou égalitaire entre la femme et l’homme ?<p>L’analyse genrée de ces discours propres à chacun de ces courants, permet-elle d’identifier des différences de représentation de « la femme musulmane » ?L’émergence d’une féminisation du discours islamique à Bruxelles, au sein du courant conscientisateur des Frères Musulmans engendre-t-elle une remise en question de ces représentations et la mise en exergue des rapports sociaux de sexe ?A partir d’une recherche de terrain, qui s’est étendue de septembre 2006 à mars 2011, nous répondons à ces questions à l’aide d’un corpus constitué de plus 60 discours issus des acteurs et actrices religieux des courants fondamentalistes à Bruxelles. Ce corpus peut prétendre à l’exhaustivité.<p><p> / Doctorat en Philosophie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished