How Islamic is Islamic feminism? And how valid are feminist reinterpretations of the Qur’an? And does the Qur’an really endorse feminism’s dual core beliefs: doing away with patriarchy and dethroning hierarchy to create an egalitarian social order, so that women may be put on equal footing with men – socially, politically and economically?
Here I wish only to draw attention to a few incongruities between loyalty to feminist principles and certain passages of the holy Qur’an.16 For example, how can one claim every form of patriarchy to be wrong, given that the Qur’an is pretty specific when it says in the context of marriage and family life that: Men are protectors of women [4:34] and that: Men have a degree over them [2:228]? Of course, such verses aren’t saying that every man is intellectually, morally and spiritually superior to every woman. But they are sanctioning patriarchy, at least in the marital and family context.
Our Prophet ﷺ said: ‘Indeed, each of you is a shepherd, and each of you is responsible for their flock. The ruler is a shepherd over the people, and is responsible for his subjects. A man is a shepherd over his family, and is responsible for them. A woman is a shepherd over the husband’s home and children, and is responsible for them.’17
Surely this hadith is not just speaking about patriarchy, but to a sense of hierarchy too? Hierarchy makes more than a guest appearance in the Qur’anic command: O you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger, and those charged with authority among you. [4:59] We see hierarchy again in the verse which tells us who does and does not have the right to speak about matters of wider public welfare: If any matter comes to them concerning security or fear, they spread it around. But if they had only referred it to the Messenger or to those charged with authority, those amongst them who are able to investigate and reason out the matter would then know [what to do with] it. [4:83]
At some point – be it the hierarchy present in a head of state’s authority over the subjects or citizens; or a wife’s obedience to her husband and her yielding to some level of patriarchy; or the non-egalitarian, unequal right of parents to receive kind and dutiful treatment from their children – feminists will encounter an epistemic impasse. Do they honour the clear-cut injunctions of the Qur’an, or do they remain glued to the key feminist principles and say ‘No’ to the holy Text? Do they acquiesce to some degree of Quranic patriarchy and hierarchy, or put the feminist quest to abolish these two ‘evils’ ahead of Revelation?
Professor Jonathan A.C. Brown deftly notes: ‘The move to assuming that scripture contains the truth but need only be understood properly to saying ‘no’ to scripture because it says something unacceptable or impossible is a blow that shatters the vessel of scriptural reverence. It means that some extra-scriptural source of truth has been openly acknowledged as more powerful and compelling than the words of God in scripture.’18
So how ‘Islamic’ is Islamic feminism? Any creed, philosophy, ideology, value-system or ism – including Islamic feminism – that is given final authority to decide what is or isn’t good or bad, relegating Islam’s Revelation to a secondary place, forfeits any claim to be considered ‘Islamic’. For loyalty to feminism’s core doctrines and loyalty to Islam’s revealed truths are at odds with each other. Loyalty to one will undeniably necessitate disloyalty and disbelief in the other. This much is clear.
Taken from Justice, Equality & Feminism: the Quranic View by Surkheel Abu Aaliyah
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16. Shaykh Abdullah bin Hamid Ali has briefly toured Islamic feminism’s methods of reinterpretation in his article: Feminism & Recalibrating Faith According to an Islamic Epistemic. I’ve drawn a few pointers from his article in the discussion which follows. A more loquacious and metaphysical exploration of the subject is given in Abdal Hakim Murad, Islam, Irigaray, and the Retrieval of Gender.
17. Al-Bukhari. no.6719; Muslim, no.1829.
18. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad (London: Oneworld Publications, 2014), 288.
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