Feminist theory, women's emancipation, Muslim societies, Islamic revival, Saba Mahmood, Fatima Mernissi, religious norms, moral agency, ethical will, patriarchal readings, Islamic history, women's rights, anthropology, critique, liberal judgments, freedom, agency, religious practices, piety movement, contextualized understanding, reinterpretation of religious texts, equality, forms of attachment, self-expression, autonomy, historical trajectories, cultural contexts, power relations, gender roles, Islamic feminism, women's roles, Prophet's era, harem politics, moral transformation, docile agent, feminist critique, Islamic reform, religious submission, ethics of the self
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Critical analysis of Saba Mahmood and Fatima Mernissi's approaches to women's emancipation in Muslim societies, exploring their views on feminist theory, religious norms, and agency.
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[...] Dufour, Trans.). Amsterdam Editions. (Original work published in 2005) Mernissi, F. (1991). The veil and the male elite: A feminist interpretation of women's rights in Islam (M. J. Lakeland, Trans.). Addison-Wesley. Mernissi, F. (1991). Le Harem politique. The Prophet and the women. Albin Michel. [...]
[...] Despite this, they adopt very different methodological and theoretical approaches. We will seek to understand how they conceive of women's emancipation in contexts marked by religious norms, and also what are the contributions and limitations of their respective approaches. I. Summary of texts Feminist Theory, Incarnation, and the Docile Agent: Reflections on the Islamic Revival in Egypt de Saba Mahmood First, we will address the 2001 article by Saba Mahmood, which is based on an ethnography conducted among women who belong to the Islamic piety movement in Cairo and Egypt. [...]
[...] " Mernissi, on the other hand, proposes a courageous and erudite critique of Islamic history. She seeks to give a voice to the erased women from official religious narratives. She opens the way for a theological reform. The weak point of her approach, sometimes very rationalist, could be her elitism. In fact, her theory may seem disconnected from the realities lived by women who do not always have access to this type of learned discourse. Personal Reflection We will now move on to a critical reflection on these readings. [...]
[...] Feminist Theory, Incarnation, and the Docile Agent: Reflections on Islamic Revival in Egypt - Saba Mahmood (2001); The Harem Politics. The Prophet and the Women - Fatima Mernissi (1991) - How do these two authors conceive of women's emancipation in contexts marked by religious norms, and what are the contributions and limitations of their respective approaches? Critical Comparative Lecture of Saba Mahmood and Fatima Mernissi: Women's Emancipation in Muslim Societies Introduction «?It is imperative to take into account the diversity of historical and cultural trajectories that the desire for autonomy and self-expression embarks upon (Mahmood p. [...]
[...] The history of forgotten or marginalized Muslim women is valued. Her approach seeks to inscribe the struggles for equality in a continuity of tradition. And therefore her approach supposes a tension between religion and patriarchy, but also the possibility of a feminist Islam. Mahmood, on the other hand, refuses to conceive of emancipation simply and solely as contestation. She shows that the women of the piety movement would not seek to escape the religious norm. But rather to live it fully, as a practice of self-perfection. [...]
