Margot Badran*
An historical Overview of Conferences
on Islamic Feminism:
Circulations and New Challenges
Conferences bringing people together in face-to-face encounters form an integral part of the history of Islamic feminism and are intimately involved in the
shaping and transmitting of Islamic feminist discourse and activist work. At the
same time, conferences help consolidate transnational Islamic feminist networks
and cement relationships. They also provide valuable records of the work and serve
as markers of the trajectory of Islamic feminism1
The conference on “Islamic feminisms: boundaries and politics” that Stephanie
Latte Abdullah organized at the Institute de Recherches et d’Études sur le Monde
Arabe et Musulman in Aix-en-Provence in December 2009 occurred at a time when
Islamic feminism is moving with increased acceleration from a primary focus on
*
1
Senior Fellow, The Reza and Georgeanna Khatib Visiting Chair in Comparative Religion at St. Joseph’s
College, Brooklyn.
On global feminist networking in general see Valentine Moghadam, Globalizing Women: Transnational
Feminist Networks (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).
REMMM 128, 33-39
34 / Margot Badran
theorization to the stage of social movement organizing. It is also a moment: (1)
when expanding numbers of women affiliated with Islamist political parties and
movements are gravitating toward the egalitarian model of religion that Islamic
feminism explicates, and (2) when moves toward egalitarian Islam are discernable
inside highly conservative Muslim majority societies such as Saudi Arabia. These
trends may be seen as the new sociological layer in the quest for the implementation of an egalitarian model of Islam as we get insights into from papers presented
in the conference.
The terms in the conference title –Islamic feminisms, boundaries, politics capture
key– concerns of this moment in the history of Islamic feminism. The pluralizing
of Islamic feminism can be read either as announcing or suggesting the need to
consider the notion of multiple Islamic feminisms. I continue to prefer to retain the
singular to keep the focus on Islamic feminism’s core message, and sine qua non, of
full human equality inclusive of gender equality and social justice. As I see it, if this
basic meaning is not taken as a given then we are not speaking of Islamic feminism
but of something else2. Now that there is an accelerated move in the trajectory of
Islamic feminism from theory building to social movement building clearly there
will be, and are, different local movements, responding to the diversity of local
imperatives, but the driving core principles and core ideas remain the same. I think
retaining the singular reminds us of this and helps preserve the integrity of Islamic
feminism. I think we have to be wary of the possibility of fragmentation and circulation of multiple meanings that can cunningly undercut or dilute the basic tenets
of Islamic feminism which pluralizing the term might unwittingly promote. I do
agree however that we need to guard against the possibility of suggesting Islamic
feminism is static and monolithic. I also understand that we need a vocabulary to
talk about the multiplicity within Islamic feminism short of simply adding an “s”.
(I do pluralize Muslim women’s secular feminisms which emerged from the start
as diverse, nationally-grounded social movements.)
The question of boundaries is vexing. There exist both conceptual and social
boundaries. I have just made the case for respecting Islamic feminism’s conceptual boundaries, which should not be seen as tantamount to shutting out theoretical refinements and dynamic thought, and indeed I understand boundaries to be
porous. Concerning social boundaries and Islamic feminism, as just observed, we
are at a moment when more women, from Islamist groupings and in arch conservative societies, are coming into Islamic feminist space, in terms of being inspired
by the ideals of an egalitarian Islam. Yet, while there is not a necessary connection
between Islamic feminism and religious identity, there is now a noticeable slide
toward associating Islamic feminism with being Muslim and a recent tendency
among progressive Muslim women for gate-keeping in some movement-building
2
I expressed this view, which I continue to maintain, in 2007. See Margot Badran, “Islamischer Feminismus
- Drei öffentliche Foren in Europa,” [English original, Islamic Feminism: Three Forums in Europe]
www.StimmenMuslimische.de July 13, 2007 (date of initial posting on this web journal).
An historical Overview of Conferences on Islamic Feminism… News Challenges / 35
circles. The less bounded Islamic feminism is in terms of who is in and who is
out as pivoted around identity the more vitality it will have and the greater chance
for its vision to be translated into practice at local levels and to become a broad
social reality.
Now is the time for serious political work. In this social movement stage what is
needed is not more theology but more politics. Patriarchal states – whether secular
or Islamic – as well as patriarchal Islamist movements are not moved by the vigor
of religious argumentation alone but by their own political interests. It is not that
what Islamic feminism stands for has not worked for many women in their everyday lives, for it has. The great success that Islamic and secular feminists scored
with the revision of the Moroccan Mudawwana or family law came about through
astute politics involving women, civil society at large, and the state. The theology
was in place.
I would now like to place the Aix-en-Provence conference in the context of an
abbreviated history of conferences illuminating Islamic feminism, focusing on
a few ground-breaking meetings in which I have participated over the past two
decades that mark some of the milestones in the trajectory of Islamic feminism.
It was at the 1990 Roundtable on Identity Politics and Women that IranianAmerican sociologist Valentine Moghadam organized at the United Nations World
Institute for Development Economics (WIDER) in Helsinki that there were the first
inklings that the phenomenon that would be soon identified as Islamic feminism
was in the making, that is to say, that moves to articulate principles of gender equality and social justice in Qur’anic language were underway. We as a group of secular feminist scholars and human rights activists of different religions and national
backgrounds had assembled to discuss the still relatively new and disturbing
appearance of religious fundamentalisms and their dire effects on women. Nayereh
Tohidi, an Iranian scholar, and I coming directly from Egypt where I was doing
research, shared the news that from inside the Islamic Republic of Iran and from
within the context of the Islamic political and cultural resurgence in Egypt, efforts
were underway to develop an Islamic liberation theology counteracting the repressive treatment of women. This conference occurred one year before AfricanAmerican Amina Wadud published her ground-breaking book Qur’an and Woman
and two years before Shahla Sherkat founded what immediately became the highly
influential journal Zanan in Iran. These publishing events are considered foundational moments in Islamic feminism. We left Helsinki pondering new, brighter
directions women might be heading toward in the maelstrom of religious fundamentalisms’ dark shadows.
To combat the ill effects of spreading Islamic fundamentalism, or Islamism,
Women Living under Muslim Laws (WMUML) was created by secular feminists
from diverse locations in the early 1980s who answered back to the introduction of
a regressive family law in Algeria. WLUML, which included Muslim women and
those of other religious affiliations, maintained a central concern with reforming
family laws and other laws inimical to women, and became the first significant
REMMM 128, 33-39
36 / Margot Badran
transnational network of its kind. WMUML held a conference in Bangladesh in
1992 where we strategized the project of collecting family laws based in fiqh,
along with civil and customary laws, in some twenty Muslim majority countries.
We wished to demonstrate the diversity of family laws in Muslim societies and
thus the multiple readings of Islamic jurisprudence and to underline that so-called
“shar ‘iah laws” as fiqh-backed law are man-made and not divine and thus immutable as commonly claimed. I remember well the energy and insights that streamed
into our collective work over the years transcending national and religious boundaries. The results of a decade of painstaking collection resulted in the manual
Knowing our Rights: Women, Family, Laws, and Customs in the Muslim World
published in 2003 and republished in 2006. As widely known, WLUML became
the largest network of Muslim women, together with non-Muslims and is still
going strong today.
The Conference on Religion, Culture, and Women’s Human Rights in the
Muslim World that met in Washington in 1994 organized by Iranian activist
Mahnaz Afkhami, director of Sisterhood is Global Institute (SIGI) constituted
another milestone3. It was convened to discuss women’s issues framed by the slogan
“human rights are women’s rights” in preparation for the UN World Conference on
Women to be held the following year in Beijing. This conference, unlike the previous two mentioned, was open to the wider public which gathered in huge numbers.
For the first time in my experience secular Muslim women and religiously identified Muslim women (I prefer this to the term “religious women” as it presumes that
secular women are not religious which many secular women resent) as well as nonMuslim women assembled in the same public venue. My reaction to this was that
simply coming together in the same room and having formal and informal contact
was an effective way to build understanding and to resist attempts by conservatives
to split the world of women, the old “divide and rule” technique. The conference
was also an answer to those who wished to perpetuate the notion of an East/West
split and use the western label to discredit progressive moves. Sudanese professor of
law and human rights expert Abdullahi An-Naim’s powerful presentation on human
rights as Islamic was most timely4. The phenomenon that would be called “Islamic
feminism” was then still quietly in the making.
By the second half of the 1990s word was getting out about the new Islamic
feminism through the publications of scholars, writers, and journalists which
quickly circulated through the Internet. In 2005 the first International Conference
on Islamic Feminism convened in Barcelona by the Junta Islamica of Catalonia,
with Abdennur Prado the lead organizer, put Islamic feminism on the wider map.
3
4
An edited volume by Mahnaz Afkhami came out of this conference, Faith and Freedom: Women’s Human
Rights in the Muslim World (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995).
See Abdullahi An-Na‘im, “The Dichotomy between Religious and Secular Discourse in Islamic Societies,”
in Faith and Freedom, pp. 51-60 and also Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights,
and International Law (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990).
An historical Overview of Conferences on Islamic Feminism… News Challenges / 37
Not only was this the first international conference focusing on Islamic feminism
but it was organized by religiously identified feminist Muslims, mainly Spanish
converts, who brought together Muslim secular and Islamic feminists and women of
other religions, along with some men, from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
Prado explained that the organizers wanted Islamic feminism “to be visualized as
a whole.” The Barcelona conference was a powerful demonstration of the collapse
of the East/West dichotomy that the 1994 Washington conference had shown to be
dissolving. Islamic feminism as a theory including the imperative of implementation was illustrated by the combination of scholars and activists on the panels and
in the audience. The lively engagement of the audience signaled the wider outreach
that conferences can achieve.
Although I followed events closely I did not attend the first Barcelona conference but participated in the next two in 2006 and 2008. (A fourth conference is
scheduled for October 2010 in Madrid.) The focus of the second conference was
on the shar‘iah and the reform of family laws steeped in patriarchal readings
of Islam 5. The third conference focused on Muslim women and globalization.
It examined “the double oppression” of women ensuing from economic neglect
or exploitation and from religious fundamentalism. The conference also examined relationships between Islamic feminism and other feminisms, affirming
that broader feminist alliances are necessary to reach goals. It also affirmed the
importance of maintaining specificity within diversity6. The openness set by the
Barcelona conferences should not be underestimated especially in light of the
more current trends toward exclusivity being manifested from within the circles of
Islamic feminism7. In 2006, the same year the first Barcelona conference convened,
the French association Islam et Laicite with UNESCO sponsored an international
colloquium asking, What is Islamic Feminism8? Many remarked that this conference was significant for providing a public space, seldom available in France for
Muslims to speak out for themselves on questions relating to women, gender, and
Islam. One of the intended goals was to enlighten the wider public fed on negative
stories of Islam and Muslims, especially relating to women.
In 2009 the Malaysian Sisters in Islam in Kuala Lumpur hosted the Global
Conference for Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family gathering a massive
5
6
7
8
My paper for the second Barcelona conference was titled “Islamic Feminism: the Latest Chapter.” Selected
papers from the first and second Barcelona conferences along with some others were published in the volume,
Abdennur Prado, ed., La emergencia del feminismo islámico (Barcelona: 2008), p. 105-34. My paper in
this volume, El feminismo islámico en el nuevo Mediterráneo was originally published as Il femminismo
islamico e la nuova cultura mediterranea, Danilo Zolo, ed. L'alternativa mediterranea. Un dialogo fra le
due sponde (Milano, Feltrinelli, 2007).
My presentation to the third Barcelona conference was on the “Future of Islamic Feminism.”
For an assessment of the first two Barcelona conferences and the conference organized by Islam et Laïcité
and UNESCO see Badran, Islamischer Feminismus - Drei öffentliche Foren in Europa.
Papers from this conference were published by Islam et Laïcité, Existe-t-il un feminism musulman?
(Paris l’Harmattan, 2007); my article is titled “Le Féminisme islamique en mouvement,” p. 49-70.
See also Badran, Islamischer Feminismus - Drei öffentliche Foren in Europa.
REMMM 128, 33-39
38 / Margot Badran
number of scholars and activists from around the world9. The purpose of this
conference was to launch the Musawah (equality) movement which focuses on the
reform of fiqh-backed family laws. It pointed to the progress made in Morocco with
the 2005 revision of the Mudawwana or Family Law declaring husband and wife
equal heads of family which resulted from the confluence of secular and Islamic
feminism. Musawah aims to consolidate a global movement to reform family laws
based upon Islamic principles along with principles of equality and justice enshrined in national constitutions and in international instruments. Despite this holistic
approach, and although the movement includes secular feminists, who have always
worked with feminists of other religions (and indeed, there are also non-Muslims
among the ranks of the Islamic feminists), the emergent Musawah movement shows
signs of exclusivity. Moreover, the Musawah leadership, as manifest in their 2009
statements, shrink from confronting the question of “the family” as distinct from
“the Muslim family” when talking about legal reform. Yet in Muslim majority
societies there are many religiously mixed families, that is families in which only
one spouse is Muslim. New laws need to take this into account. There are a number
of crucial issues including headship of family or the equality of spouses irrespective of religion, custody, and inheritance, to name a few. Non-Muslims need to be
integral parts of theorizing, strategizing the equality movement, and involvement
in application. Exclusivity can derail equality work.
In May 2009 I helped organize the Conference on Reformist Women Thinkers
in the Islamic World held under the direction of Haleh Esfandiari, Director of the
Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
The conference brought together female scholars of different religious affiliations
as public intellectuals, and activists, including secular and Islamic feminists, and
those who prefer to eschew labels to scrutinize directions in gender reform as part
of broader reforms. The point was stressed that as the Islamic world is home to
both Muslims and non-Muslims legal and social changes must consider the rights
and needs of all members of society. The note of inclusivity was important to deliberations of a just future for all in the real world/s in which we live10. A sequel to
this conference is another scheduled for June 2010 wich I also helped organize on
the theme of Islamic Feminism and Beyond ‒ The New Frontier: Inclusivity and
Equality in Family and Society. It will assess the recent past and consider the needs
of our shared future and how to achieve the practice of ideals11.
After this brief excursion I now return to the conference at the Institute de
Recherches et d’Études sur le Monde Arabe et Musulman and its theme Islamic
9
10
11
Musawa distributed a book of position papers by experts edited by Zainah Anwar, Wanted: Equality and Justice in
the Muslim Family (Kuala Lumpur: Sisters in Islam, 2009). For my reflections on this conference and the Musawa
project see “A Global Movement in Pursuit of Equality,” ResetDOC (also in Arabic and Italian) April 2009.
See “Reformist Women Thinkers in the Islamic World,” Occasional Paper Series, Middle East Program
(Washington: The Woodrow Wilson Center, 2009). My own paper is titled: “Reformist Women as Feminists
in Pursuit of Equality in the Islamic World,” p. 5-7.
This will be held on June 15. The proceedings will also be published in the Occasional Paper Series of the
Middle East Program.
An historical Overview of Conferences on Islamic Feminism… News Challenges / 39
Feminisms: Boundaries and Politics. Is Islamic feminism fragmenting, or more
seriously, is it fracturing? Are boundaries getting in the way and who is constructing and maintaining them? What about the politics?
The good news is that Islamic feminist discourse – Islamic liberation theology –
is sound, gaining wide traction, and indeed, even political conservatives must take
it into account and are even mobilizing an egalitarian version of Islam, if only
instrumentally. Some boundaries are being breached among women while other
boundaries are being erected. Tensions are surfacing in some quarters between
secular and Islamic feminist positions, although more broadly secular and Islamic
feminists are working in tandem. It can be seen that some Muslim women from
among the ranks of the progressives have begun to act as gate-keepers in this new
expanding social movement phase. This does not bode well as Islamic feminism
moves forward as a social movement. Is it a manifestation that the communalism
which is rampant around the globe has now penetrated progressive circles? Or is it a
reflection of a new intra-women politics in a high stakes competition for resources,
power, and acclaim? These may seem hard questions but they need to be asked.
Conferences are windows which bring them to the fore. Perhaps they can be venues
for a hard look.
REMMM 128, 33-39