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Muslim Women Activism and the Transformation of Muslim Public Sphere

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Muslim Women Activism and the Transformation of Muslim Public Sphere NETWORKING FOR POWER AND CHANGE: MUSLIM WOMEN ACTIVISM AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF MUSLIM PUBLIC SPHERE A dissertation presented by Riham Ashraf Bahi to The Department of Political Science In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the field of Public and International Affairs Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts May 2008 ii ©2008 Riham Ashraf Bahi ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii NETWORKING FOR POWER AND CHANGE: MUSLIM WOMEN ACTIVISM AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF MUSLIM PUBLIC SPHERE by Riham Ashraf Bahi ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public and International Affairs in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Northeastern University, May 2008 iv ABSTRACT At the dawn of the 21 st century, a “critical mass” of educated, enlightened, and empowered Muslim women have emerged around the world. Their fundamental questions about Islam and women may help in transforming Islamic laws and bringing about modern, egalitarian Muslim societies. In this research, I argue that Muslim women scholar-activists are playing a key role in the reinterpretation of their religion and the modernization of their societies. This study probes and explores a complex, evolving, transnational Muslim dialogue about gender equality, in which the underlying concern is about empowering Muslim women to claim the public sphere as their medium of struggle for justice and inclusion. The study argues that this emerging public sphere projects attributes of civility, engagement, pluralism and voluntary participation. Muslim women activism redefines the public role of religion in motivating people to engage in what, in democratic theory, is referred to as the “politics of presence”, as distinct from the “politics of representation”. Their critical discourse demonstrates that Islam is not isolated from the more general endeavors searching for new mechanisms for democratic presence. To provide insights into the significance of the “new” form of Muslim dialogic engagement and activism, the study advocates the need to broaden our political imagination to incorporate religious perspectives as well as alternative (discursive) forms and spaces of politics that were previously overlooked because they did not fit a predetermined, Westphalian notion of the ‘political’. v This dissertation concludes that in order to counter the dialectical dynamics of hegemony and extremism that define and regulate the rhetoric of Muslim women’s liberation, Muslim women scholar-activists are engaged in new transnational discursive practices and spaces. Muslim women are engaged in redefining Islam as well as creating a post-statist, post-hegemonic, post-national, and transnational or “translocal” public space. Not only Muslim women are redefining the normative tenets of Islam, but they are redefining the normative content of a global civil society and a peaceful global ethos as well. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of many individuals. To all of them I am forever grateful. First, I would like to thank my advisor Denis Sullivan for his continuous support throughout the past seven years of my graduate studies in the United States. His support helped me succeed in my graduate studies, which culminated in writing this dissertation. I am also grateful to the members of my dissertation committee: Eileen McDonagh and Mary Churchill for their insightful comments and critiques. I would like to express my gratitude to the Binational Fulbright Commission in Egypt for awarding me the Pre-Doctoral grant and to Cairo University for granting me the study leave to undertake my doctoral studies in the United States. I also wish to acknowledge and give thanks to my professors, colleagues and staff in the department of Political Science at Northeastern University. Of special mention, I would like to acknowledge Paul Beran and Mary Churchill for being a constant source of guidance and invaluable advice. My deepest appreciation is due to my parents, for their love, support, encouragement and confidence in my abilities. Quite literally, I would not be here without their support. My love and gratitude to my husband, Haytham Khalil and my son, Muhammad for their continuous support that allowed me to complete this dissertation. Last, but not least, I am thankful to Allah for all the blessings He bestowed upon me. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ................................................................................................................ iii Acknowledgments ............................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ............................................................................................... vii Chapter 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................1 The Third Debate: Critical Theory and Constructivism .....................................3 Islamism as a Post-Hegemonic Discourse...........................................................6 A Genuine Common Ground?...........................................................................14 The New Islamic Intellectuals and “Globalization from Below” .....................16 The Research Problem ......................................................................................22 Significance of the Study and Nature of Contribution .....................................27 Methodology ....................................................................................................30 Organization of the Study .................................................................................33 2. Literature Review: Framing the Muslim “Women Question” ...................35 Secular Feminism and Religion: Rejection and Dismissal ...............................41 Islamic Feminism: Revision and Reconstruction .............................................45 Religion and Social Change: Women Negotiating Islam and Modernity........50 From Islam versus Secularism to Islamic Secularism.......................................54 Islam and Civil Society .....................................................................................55 Transnational Networking and Activism ..........................................................59 Conclusions .......................................................................................................60 viii 3. Conceptual Framework: Reconfiguring the Public Sphere.........................62 International Relations Theory: Beyond Limited Imagination .........................64 State-Centrism: Rethinking the Political in International Relations .............65 Religion: The Missing Dimension .................................................................68 Culture and the Configuration of Political Identity .......................................70 The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Challenge of Islamic Fundamentalism .............................................................................................76 Transnational Relations: Changing the Nature and the Boundaries of the Muslim Political Community .............................................................................79 Transnational Muslim Networks: Ummah as a Political Project .........................92 Transnational Muslim Public Sphere: The Better Outcome ................................95 The Public Sphere as Framework: Premises and Promises..........................98 Features of the Emergent Public Sphere .......................................................99 The Contemporary Context of Muslim Transnationalism: Challenges and Opportunities .....................................................................................................101 Conclusion.........................................................................................................107 4. Clash of Interpretations: The Politics of Muslim Women Engagement in the Public Sphere.....................................................................109 The ‘Women Question’ in the Muslim Context..............................................111 The New Islamist Intellectuals and ‘Truth-Seeking’ Discourses....................117 Muslim Women and Dialogic Politics: Truth-Seeking Between Traditionalists and Reformists.........................................................................122 Women Claim Islam: The Emergence of Transnational ‘Interpretive Identity’.. .........................................................................................................126 The Construction of the Islamic Feminist Discourse .....................................132 Scholarship-Activism: The Character of the New Interpretive Community...................................................................................................132 Critical Engagement with the Sacred Text: Motives and Motivations ........139 Contextual Interpretive Practices: Hermeneutical and Political Strategies……. .............................................................................................143 ix Conclusion.......................................................................................................149 5. Women Claiming the Public Sphere: Muslim Intellectuals and Transnational Exchanges ..................................................................................151 Critical Islam: Transnational Actors, Ideas and Exchanges............................152
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