Minaret: Islam and Feminism at Crossroads

Abstract

Feminism is alleged to have marginalized and objectified non Western, ethnic, religious, cultural and geographical communities. Women from these marginalized segments are now indigenising the movement to make the cause pluralistic, feminisms—representation of women across the globe. Islamic feminism or/and Muslim feminism, not necessarily advocated by Muslims, is one of the feminist facets that enriches the concept of feminism by bringing to the fore Islam as a faith towards women liberation. This study engages with expression of femaleness, if not feminism, in Sudanese-Scottish fictionist Leila Aboulela’s work— ‘Minaret’. Aboulela’s heroine, Najwa, reinvents herself from liberalism towards Islam. She does not set out to defend Islam from a Western perspective that has come to characterise popular narratives about identity and the clash of cultures in Britain. Instead, she relates to an inside experience of connecting with Islamic network of customs and beliefs for spiritual appease. The key concern of the study is to examine the way this transformation takes place—stimulus and modalities. At times her version of bondage with Islam justifies and reinforces patriarchy rather than combating it. In that, she appears to be standing on the wrong side of notion of gender egalitarianism in Islam. Incongruously, Anwar, the male protagonist emerges as a profeminist portraying liberal feminist values. The denouement is that we need to tolerate diversity of feminist cause within Islamic circles and beyond with a progressive spirit