Promoting Gender Equality within Islamic Tradition via Contextualist Approach

The importance of advancing women’s rights is closely intertwined with the development of civil society and the institutionalization of democracy in Middle Eastern countries. There is indeed an intimate relationship between the process of democratization and promoting gender equality, since democracy necessitates equality between men and women. In order to advance the issue of gender equality, what is required is a solid theoretical framework which has its roots in the reexamination of pre-modern interpretation of certain Qurʾānic passages that seem to have given men more rights than it gives women. This paper suggests that those Muslim scholars who adopt a contextualist approach to the Qurʾānic text and its interpretation provide a solid theoretical background for improving women’s rights. Indeed, the aim of the paper is to discuss how the contextualist approach to the Qurʾānic text and its interpretation given by a number of prominent scholars is capable of promoting the issue of gender equality. The paper concludes that since (1) much of the gender inequality found in the primary sources of Islam as well as pre-modern Muslim writings is rooted in the natural cultural norms and standards of early Islamic societies and (2) since the context of today’s world is so different from that of the premodern era, the proposed models provide a solid theoretical framework for promoting women’s rights and gender equality. Keywords—Contextualism, Gender equality, Islam, Women’s rights I. THE IMPORTANCE OF PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY HE significance of advancing women’s rights in the modern period lies not only in the fact that this half of the population must be given equal rights to that given to men, but is also rooted in the idea that development of civil society and democratic institutions are impossible without promoting gender equality. The Inter-Parliamentary Council articulated the intimate relation between democracy and gender equality as follows: “The concept of democracy will only assume true and dynamic significance when political policies and national legislation decided upon jointly by men and women with equitable regard for the interests and aptitudes of both halves of the population” [1]. A number of scholars and activists have recognized the close relationship between the democratization process and promoting gender equality. According to Jahanshahrad, “there is a direct relationship between gender equality and democratization... women’s demands for equal rights can theoretically be recognized as part of the general demands of Iranians for democracy”. Referring to the context of modern Iranian society, she states that “it is necessary for the activists in the democratization movement to recognize the A. Akbar is a PhD student from Asia Institute, Faculty of Arts, Melbourne University, 2-3, Sydney Myer Asia Centre, Swanston St & Monash Road, Parkville, VIC 3000, Australia (e-mail: [email protected]). independent activities of the women’s movement for advancing women’s position in both private and public lives” [2]. In a similar vein, a number of Egyptian writers and columnists, during what is generally recognized as the “Arab Spring,” called for revolutionists’ immediate action to support women’s rights and thus defy gender inequality since they believed that Egyptian women were able to play a central role in developing civil society through bringing substantial changes to the social and political spheres of their society [3]. It is in this context that Shirin Ebadi, Noble prize winner in 2003, warned Arab women against marginalization during the democratization process [4]. In practice, women have played an integral role in the growth of reform movements, as well as consolidation of the structures of democracy in various Middle Eastern countries. In this respect, female activists and male reformists often cooperated with each other and used similar strategies in order to influence social and political change. For example, in Iran “during (president) Khatami’s two-term presidency, women and reformists attempted to use the electoral and institutional system to effect social and political change” [5]. They relied “on the media to publicize their efforts, draw support and educate the populace” [5, p. 151]. The reason why women’s groups cooperated with male reformists is that they had a number of common objectives. Both movements, for instance, have attempted to call for individuals’ equal rights in sociopolitical, as well as economic spheres of societies; indeed, equality among all individuals of society necessitates gender equality. However, it must be noted that despite women’s efforts in promoting gender equality, the traditionalists and conservative forces opposed the women’s movement to advance its goals. One reason behind this is that the women’s group often lacked a solid theoretical methodology rooted in reinterpretation of primary and secondary sources of Islam to advance gender equality. In this sense, the purpose of this paper is to explain how the contextualists’ approach to the Qurʾānic text and its interpretation given by three contemporary Muslim scholars, namely Rahman, Abū Zayd and Soroush, is theoretically capable of promoting gender equality. II. LITERALISM VERSUS CONTEXTUALISM The most straightforward definition of literalism is that “the exact wording of a text carries the whole weight of its meaning, excluding any unmentioned or extraneous data” [6][8]. In fact, literalism refers to the idea that the literal meaning of the text is privileged over all other forms of meanings in the process of interpretation. In this sense, the language used in Promoting Gender Equality within Islamic Tradition via Contextualist Approach