Muslim societies. Whereas secular women activists
see the United Nations conventions and civil laws
as the means to an enhanced women’s status,
Islamist women – some of whom are equally keen
on the same improvement to women’s positions –
see the Qur±àn (and a more enlightened practice of
“the real Islam” more broadly) as the only (and far
more powerful) vehicle to achieving this aim.
Even though many Islamist women prioritize
women’s roles as mothers and wives, some of them
argue that, far from limiting women’s active partic-
ipation in the public arena, these roles can also be
strategic forms of public engagement. By perform-
ing these roles, the proponents argue, women learn
and practice important skills that strengthen the
family unit (the most important nucleus of any
society), which is critical for propagating certain
ways of thought and eventually building a power-
ful national infrastructure that services both dìn
wa-dawla(religion and nation). In other words,
there is such a thing as “political motherhood.”
Thus, in an ironic twist on feminist language (“the
personal is political”), some Islamist women
activists interpret the political to be broader than
the traditionally defined public space, and inclusive
of the (previously) private domain of family. Hence
the family is conceived of as a mini-state, and
women, as leaders of that, become important polit-
ical actors.
Not all Islamist women think along these lines.
Nevertheless, it is significant that some of the most
vocal political opposition in many parts of the Arab
world today – the Islamists – have women leaders
who uphold versions of such a philosophy. In so
doing, these women are simultaneously being
respectful of their religious tradition – as well as
very protective of it – and advocating for women’s
active public service.
There remains a group of women and men, active
within fundamentalist and Islamist extremist
groups, who openly oppose women occupying any
public roles whatsoever and, indeed, feel that many
of the rights granted to women in legislation
(whether, for example, pay equal to that of men in
labor contexts and/or equal access to divorce in
some personal status situations) are contrary to the
spirit and letter of religious advocacy. Some of the
loudest voices in the religious communities in Arab
countries today uphold such views, and the
cacophony that ensues is fueled by factors which
are often not even related to religion. From the
point of view of the woman or man on the Arab
streets, there is a vacuum where grand mobilizing
ideologies such as Nasserism and Arab socialism608 political-social movements: islamist movements and discourses
used to be. Liberalism appears to have failed in
everything except increasing the divide between
rich and poor, and the democratic deficit. In addi-
tion, various governments and regimes, hampered
by debt and structural adjustment – thus crippling
their ability to provide necessary social services to
the most vulnerable constituencies – also appear
increasingly emasculated in a foreign policy context
that has led to a virtual loss of one land (Palestine)
and a recolonization of another (Iraq).
Into this vacuum and seeming chaos, the relative
certainty of the unchanging religious texts (and
those who speak in its name) is alluring. Where
governments offer no mobilizing collective ideol-
ogy and appear remote from people’s needs and
wants, religious spokespersons elucidate the justice
and inherent communal welfare of the never chang-
ing Qur±àn. Where governments fail to provide
basic social services, Islamists run schools and
donate their expertise and time to clinics and hos-
pitals that care for the poor and even provide
stipends, pensions, and much more. And where
governments appear undermined in political and
military conflicts, religious extremists uphold the
sanctity of martyrdom in the name of nobler causes.
The fact that many Arab governments have also
begun to use religious rhetoric means that religious
discourse has become a normative form of social
and political engagement.
In such a situation, women (and particularly
women’s bodies) become charged political and cul-
tural symbols. In much the same way that the col-
ors and placement of flags are meant to symbolize
various issues, women’s bodies also become sym-
bolic of larger issues. In turbulent times, control
over women, as the upholders of the honor and
integrity of the community and the nation, stands
as a potent signifier for political control.
Activists for women’s rights in the Muslim world,
together with those intellectuals arguing for both
moderate Islamic and secular political dynamics,
are always attempting to ward off criticisms from
two sides: the religious right in their own countries
(for whom they are never “authentic” or “Islamic”
enough) on the one hand, and the Western right
(seeing much of what takes place in the Muslim
world as principally anti-Western) on the other. In
this situation, a possible third way of thinking polit-
ically, socially, culturally, and economically in the
Muslim world and amongst Muslim communities,
is muted.
Religious discourse has an important role in Arab
society. That is not, per se, problematic. Serious
challenges are presented, however, in the shape of