Islamic Modernism II: Women's Rights

Questions for Seminar:

Assigned Reading:

Beth Baron, The Women's Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society and the Press (Yale University Press, 1994), chapter 5, "The Rights of Woman," 103-21.

Margot Badran, Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences (Oneworld, 2009), chapter 2, "Women, Qasim Amin and the Rise of a Feminist Discourse," 55-64.

Hanan Kholoussy, For Better, For Worse: The Marriage Crisis that Made Modern Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2010), chapter 4, "Deterring Divorce, Modernizing Marriage," 77-98.

Primary Sources:

Qasim Amin, "The Emancipation of Woman and the New Woman," in Modernist Islam (cited last week), 61-9.

Nazira Zein-ed-Din, "Unveiling and Veiling," in Liberal Islam (citation below), 101-6.

Further Reading:

Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (Yale University Press, 1992).

Qasim Amin, The Liberation of Women; and, The New Woman: Two Documents in the History of Egyptian Feminism, trans. Samiha Sidhom Peterson (American University in Cairo Press, 2000).

Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke, Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing (Indiana University Press, 1990).

Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton University Press, 1995).

Miriam Cooke, Nazira Zeineddine: A Pioneer of Islamic Feminism (Oneworld, 2010).

Kenneth M. Cuno, Modernizing Marriage: Family, Ideology and Law in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Egypt (Syracuse University Press, 2015).

Charles Kurzman (ed.), Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook (Oxford University Press, 1998); see especially part 3, "Rights of Women."

Huda Shaarawi, Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist, 1879-1924, trans. Margot Badran (Feminist Press, 1987).

Judith Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 1985).

Judith Tucker, Women, Family and Gender in Islamic Law (Cambridge University Press, 2008).