Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

The problem of applying scriptural statements in changing historical situations is not unconnected with deeper hermeneutical issues that Mernissi and other Muslim feminists raise. For some Muslim feminists (as distinguished from both Islamist feminists and secular feminists who, respectively, seek to ignore modernity and Islam) veiling can’t be associated with Islam that affirms the idea of the individual (including women) as a subject, a free will present in the world, a sovereign consciousness that can’t disappear as long as the person lives. To be veiled is to be crushed and silenced and negated as monstrosity, an untruth. Muslim feminists are striving hard to “raise the hijab that covers the mediocrity and servility that is presented to us as tradition.” Thus they see hijab as a symbol of servility and mediocrity and imprisoning stratagem that derives its legitimacy neither from God nor his Prophet (SAW).       Feminist author Fatima Mernissi in her ...