Ibn Rushd’s Muslim Feminism
Reading Muslim Philosophers on Women Question Granting that the term feminism would be understood rather loosely as struggle to restore women’s legitimate dignity or rights as humans would not be objected, and rescuing it from loaded ideological content given to it in academic discourse by extremist secular and fundamentalist elements alike, one might note that there are Islamist feminists who defend what they see as rights of women given by Islam and interpreted by traditional scholars, especially medieval authorities or fuqaha (such women wear and ideally preach niqab/ hijab and believe in normativity of home or private vs. public binary as far as possible). There are secularist feminists who though may be culturally a Muslim or otherwise or even devout Muslim in their own view say invoking historical Islam is part of a problem and struggle for women’s rights should be purely secular (they generally resist hijab ) and Muslim feminists who say Islam is part of solution...