Navigating between Patriarchal Fundamentalism and Islamic Feminism: A Critical Islamic Appraisal

In this chapter, we discuss the contending notions of patriarchal fundamentalism and feminism, and move toward a moderate discourse on women empowerment, namely, Islamic femininity. In deconstructing patriarchal fundamentalism, we examine literalist and decontextualized readings of the religious tradition which encourages cultural chauvinism and leads to erroneous religious expressions. Navigating the genealogy of Western secular feminism, we note how the term “feminism” has become loaded with the baggage of imperialism, capitalism, homogenization of womanhood and negative incursions on Muslim women.In rethinking Islamic feminism, we discuss the impasse between egalitarianism and social hierarchy. We show how the verses of social hierarchy and egalitarianism are not mutually exclusive or contradictory, for they admit to functional social differences. Thus, hierarchy is not an institution of oppression and injustice, neither superiority of men over women but a functional hierarchy that governs the family structure. However, the metaphysical reality is that men and women are morally and ontologically equal. Thereafter, we discuss the contending dynamics between essentialism and social constructivism in notions of gender. We discuss that the essential attributes of men and women are not just determined by empirical observation, but are metaphysical realities known to us through revelation and our primordial nature. A simplistic socially constructed convention of gender disregards subtle distinctions between men and women that are essential to their being and autonomy.Lastly, we call toward an Islamic femininity that may produce a cohesive synthesis as opposed to a syncretic formulation such as Islamic feminism. We attempt to establish an organic Islamic model of women empowerment upon the ethical plinth of Qur’anic principles rather than the hegemony of patriarchal fundamentalism or the ideologies of feminism. Thus, an Islamic femininity will endorse complementarity and not competition; divine-guided social hierarchy and not a gender eclipse; essential female qualities and not dogmatic social constructivism; and dignity and autonomy, not subordination.