ABSTRACT
Gender equality is a modern ideal that did not enter Islam’s juristic landscape until the 20th century, along with the expansion of feminist and human rights discourses. Since then it has been the subject of an impassioned debate – a debate that is entangled in the history of the polemics between Islam and the West, and the anti-colonial and nationalist discourses of the first part of the 20th century. With the rise of political Islam in the second half of the century, and the Islamist slogan of ‘Return to Shariʿah’, the debate became part of a larger intellectual and political struggle among the Muslims between two understandings of their religion and two ways of approaching its sacred texts. One is an absolutist, dogmatic and patriarchal Islam that makes little concession to contemporary realities, such as the changed status of women in society. The other is a democratic, pluralist and rights-based Islam that is making room for these realities and values, including gender equality. In the new century, the politics of the ‘war on terror’ and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq – both of them partly justified as promoting women’s rights – added a new layer of complexity to the political and rhetorical dimensions of the debate.
