The Argument

Despite critiques, much of the scholarship on Islamism and the ‘woman question’ continues to be driven by a modernization paradigm. A classic example is the assumption that not only Islamist movements but Islam itself stand against women's equality. Articulated variously under the flags of Islamic ‘religion’, ‘culture’ or ‘tradition’, it is held that Islam is the signature cause of women's plight. From an atheistic framework, Winter (2001b) argues that Islam and Islamist movements (she conflates them) have irredeemably chained women. She asks: is Islam not ‘a primary cultural means of ensuring men's political domination of women'? (Winter 2001a: 33). Furthermore, she dismisses the idea that Islamist movements (she describes them as right-wing) have become moderate. Thus, she rejects any progressive reading of Islam claiming that the Qur'an (like other holy texts) is inherently ‘oppressive to women’ (ibid.: 12; see also Sahgal and Yuval-Davis 1992). Critical of ‘Islamic feminists’ project of evolving non-patriarchal readings of sources of Islamic authority (see, e.g., Badran 2002; Mirza 2005; and Moghadam 2002), Moghissi (1999) too contends that gender equality is ‘diametrically opposed to the basic principles of Islam’ and that ‘ … no amount of twisting… can reconcile the Qur'anic injunctions… with… gender equality' (ibid.: 140; also, see Karmi 1996: 79). Likewise, Mojab (2005: 325) avers that Islamic feminism ‘is a compromise with patriarchy’.