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Summary of Minutes—Islam & Feminism Discussion (16 June 2012)
On Saturday, June 16th, PASSIA hosted a workshop at the Best Eastern Hotel in
Ramallah to discuss “Islam and Feminism.” It was a vivacious event attended by a range of
participants including men, women, college students, professors, Palestinians and internationals.
The diversity of the audience highlights the importance of this topic to all genders, age groups,
nationalities and religions.
The first speaker, Dr. Mustafa Abu Sway, lecturer of Islamic Studies at Al-Quds
University, presented a paper on Islam as a liberation movement for women. He discussed the
Quran and Hadith and demonstrated, by way of these sources, the lack of discrimination against
women in Islam. He showed specifically how Islam liberated women from socioeconomic and
theological burdens of pre-Islamic cultures and religions. He noted that the Quran and Hadith
should be considered as the main sources of feminism in Islam, although the implications may
change with different exegeses. To substantiate his argument, Abu Sway discussed gender
equality in Islam in terms of material achievement, the creation story, the relation between
prophecy and culture, guardianship, inheritance, testimony, and house chores. He concluded
with a discussion of the political significance of women’s role in shura, or consultation.
Following a transitory discussion of shura which Dr. Mahdi Abdul Hadi, head of
PASSIA, opened to the audience, Dr. Islah Jad, Professor of Gender and Development and
Director of the Insitute of Women’s Studies at Birzeit University, spoke generally about the role
of women in political life in the Islamic world. She noted the substantial participation of females
in the Islamist political movements of the 20th Century, but questioned the significance of
women’s roles in the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions of the Arab Spring. She inquired as to
whether Islam was the problem or the solution for gender inequality in the Arab world.
Regarding the relationship between Islamic feminism and the human rights regime, Dr. Islah
drew a distinction between western legal theory, which centers on individual duties and
obligations, and Islamic society, which is built around the family as the fundamental unit. She
concluded with a discussion of feminism and nationalism, in which she noted a direct correlation
between the relative strength and weakness of feminist and nationalist movements, observing
that they tended to rise and fall together.
The next speaker was Aseel Fatafteh, a senior researcher at PASSIA, who discussed the
relationship between feminism, Islam and liberalism. She recounted that the liberal feminism of
the Arab world began as a top-down movement among the elite, and remained disconnected
from the grassroots over the course of its development. As a result, liberal feminist
movements—despite their great achievements in the field of health, education, and
employment—failed tremendously to alter social consciousness concerning the status of women
in the Arab world. This problem cannot be solved, she argued, unless we first address one of the
most significant obstacles in the way of Muslim women’s emancipation, which is the traditional
school of Islam that justifies discrimination against women and bestows a divine nature upon it.
Her conclusion was that Islam must reform its patriarchal religious institution in order to reclaim
the voice and agency of Muslim women in matters of religious, social, and political concern.
Hanadi Qawasmi, a Palestinian blogger and journalist, shared her findings from an
extensive study of an online blog called Kolna Leila (“We are all Leila”), which is devoted to the
discussion of women’s issues. Upon review of the contents of the blog, Qawasmi took interest in
the observation that most of the contributors tended to preface their blog posts with the
disclaimer, “I am not a feminist.” She noted that all of the arguments and cases put forth by blog
users about women’s issues were substantiated by Islamic sources. The blog posts could be
divided roughly into two main schools of thought: The first group believed that Islamic
teachings contain the solution to women’s issues, and that Islam should be applied “as is.” The
opposing side demanded a reformed reading of Islamic sources such as the Qur’an and the
Sunnah, in order to improve the status of women in Islam.
Professor Rosemary Hollis, Director of the Olive Tree Scholarship Programme at City
University London and a prominent scholar of Middle East Policy, addressed the question Dr.
Islah posed as to whether Islam was the problem or the solution for gender inequality in the Arab
world. Professor Hollis asserted that Islam is not the problem, although some of the people who
speak in the name of Islam may be the problem. For some feminists, she claimed, Islam can be
the solution. She recounted that feminism was championed in the Palestinian Territories during
the First Intifada, and then it retracted due to a change in the tactics of Israel. Similarly to Dr.
Islah, Professor Hollis made the distinction between the individualism of Western society and the
fundamentality of the family unit in the Arab and Muslim world. She claimed that feminism was
necessary to support this family structure, and that conflict jeopardizes the family by
undermining pride, causing humiliation and generating economic pressure.