Islam – Feminism and Religion

From the Archives: Creating Space: Mosques Affirming All Bodies, Minds, and Hearts by Laury Silvers

This was originally posted on December 31, 2013

In my first blog for Feminism and Religion, I discussed the cognitive and embodied dissonance that some Muslims experience as a result of historically (not eternally) gendered ritual forms. I ended with a promise to share with readers the ways in which el-Tawhid Juma Circle mosques try to create space to break free of those forms. Our mosques affirm all human beings as spiritually, socially, and ritually equal and try to break down the social hierarchy of ritual and theological leadership by opening up a space for all bodies, minds, and hearts to lead and follow as equals among each other.

Breaking out of cognitive and embodied dissonance requires cognitive and embodied habituation to what Amina Wadud names, “The Tawhidic Principle.” Meaning, the space must be one in which human beings can embody divine oneness by recognizing that their relationships with each other are on the horizontal plane and refrain from mediating between any other individual and God on the vertical plane. Wadud has described it as a triangle in which God is at the top with self and other at the two points beneath. Each has an individual relationship with God and a relationship of reciprocitous community with each other. Wadud argues that to mediate between another and God is nothing other than idolatry because the mediator forces another to accept that satisfying his expectations is the same as satisfying God.

From the Archives: God’s Womb by Joyce Zonana

The first time I came across the phrase, I thought I must be making a mistake. “Que Dieu l’enveloppe dans sa matrice,” the passage read in French, “May God’s womb enfold her.” or possibly, “May God enfold her in His womb.” His womb?

This was originally posted on Feb. 27th 2021

The first time I came across the phrase, I thought I must be making a mistake. “Que Dieu l’enveloppe dans sa matrice,” the passage read in French, “May God’s womb enfold her,” or possibly, “May God enfold her in His womb.” His womb?

I’d just started translating Ce pays qui te ressemble [A Land Like You], Tobie Nathan’s remarkable novel of Egypt’s Jews in the first half of the twentieth-century, and I couldn’t be sure I was correct in thinking that “womb” was the proper rendering for “matrice.” But a quick search confirmed my hunch. Matrice (from the Latin matrix < mater) might be translated as “matrix” or “mould,” but that made no sense here. “Uterus or womb” was the anatomical meaning, and it was the first meaning listed in my French dictionary.

The phrase, or something very like it, kept turning up, always after a dead person was named:

Que Dieu accueille son âme en sa matrice.

Que Dieu l’enveloppe dans sa matrice.

Que Dieu la berce dans sa matrice.

May God’s womb welcome his soul.

May God’s womb enfold him.

May God’s womb cradle her.

In all, “God’s womb” is mentioned seven times in this novel set in Cairo’s ancient Jewish quarter, Haret al-Yahud. Each time, it’s part of a ritual prayer, a formulaic wish for the wellbeing of a departed soul. But what extraordinary wellbeing is wished for here, what a remarkable envisioning of God as the possessor of a welcoming, warm womb.

Zahra Tabari by WNCRI

Women’s National Council of Resistance of Iran (info below)

In a continuation of the escalating crackdown on political dissent in Iran, Zahra Shahbaz Tabari, a 67-year-old political prisoner, was sentenced to death by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Rasht on October 25, 2025. The regime’s judiciary has accused her of “supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).”

Who Is Zahra Tabari?

Zahra Tabari, 68, holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering and is a graduate of Isfahan University of Technology and the University of Borås in Sweden, specializing in Sustainable Energy.

She suffers from chronic health conditions, and the poor conditions in Lakan Prison, combined with shortages of medication, medical care, and constant psychological pressure, have severely deteriorated her physical condition.

She was arrested on April 17, 2025, after security forces raided her home in Rasht without presenting a judicial warrant. During the raid, agents searched the house and confiscated her and her daughter’s electronic devices. For weeks, her family had no information about her whereabouts or health condition. She is currently being held in Lakan Prison in Rasht.

Decolonizing Liberal Feminism – Questioning Choices & Freedom in the Rhetoric of Saving by Huma Iqbal

In the wake of the attack on a Muslim imam, with his veiled wife in Melbourne on January 12, 2026, we are reminded of the Islamophobic violence targeting hijab-wearing women around the world. Concerns persist about ongoing Islamophobic attacks, from the murder of a German Muslim woman for wearing a hijab in July 2025, to the Bihar Chief Minister pulling down a Muslim woman’s hijab in December 2025. According to Reuters, data from various rights organizations indicate that Muslim women, particularly those who wear hijabs, face disproportionate levels of discrimination and hate crimes in parts of the EU.

These recent incidents remind me of Abu Lughod’s work, ‘Do Muslim Women Need Saving?’ 2013). Lila Abu-Lughod is a Palestinian American anthropologist and feminist scholar. She is known for her work on gender, Islam, media, and power in the Middle East. In her work, she critiques colonial and imperial feminism and advocates for culturally sensitive and context-based analysis of the lives of Muslim women.

From the Archives: To Nurse at the Same Breasts: Muslim-Jewish Kinship in Literature and Life by Joyce Zonana

It is tempting to read these recurring images of milk twins in Arab-Jewish literature as no more than a symbol, albeit a powerful one, of the profoundly intimate “brother- (and sister-)hood” of Jews and Muslims in the pre-partition culture of the Middle East and North Africa.

But the image of “milk twins” is much more than a metaphor or a symbol: it represents a reality. For it seems that many Jewish and Muslim women, living side by side as they did, had in fact regularly nursed one another’s children.

Moderator’s Note: We received the devastating news yesterday that Joyce has died. (She was born on July 16, 1949, and passed on June 11, 2025 during the full moon.) She wrote bravely of her diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforma from Feb 2022. She survived far longer than her diagnosis would suggest. Joyce is a long time contributor to FAR, writing many brilliant pieces along the way. We’ve been so lucky to have been a platform for her writings. We are posting this one today in honor of her. It was originally posted on Jan. 20, 2022 and has special poignance given the situation happening now in the Muslim/Jewish world.

Joyce Zonana. headshot Tobie Nathan’s panoramic novel about Jews and Muslims (and Christians) in early twentieth-century Egypt, A Land Like You, revolves around one central image: two infants—one Jewish, one Muslim; one male, one female—peacefully nursing at the breasts of a young Muslim woman, Oum Jinane (“Mother Paradise”).

After the birth of her long-desired daughter Masreya (“The Egyptian Woman”), Jinane travels from her poor Muslim neighborhood to a poor Jewish neighborhood to help another young mother whose long-desired infant son is languishing because she has no milk. “It’s a miracle, a great miracle,” the Jewish boy’s relatives declare:

images

Never had any neighborhood in Cairo been so excited by a baby’s nursing. Until bedtime, the child nursed three more times at the breasts of abundance. He took hold of one nipple, little Masreya another, and the two children’s hands sometimes touched. You would have thought they were two lovers entering Paradise as they held each other’s hands.

Continue reading “From the Archives: To Nurse at the Same Breasts: Muslim-Jewish Kinship in Literature and Life by Joyce Zonana”

Hijab: Word of God or Word of Man? By John Andrew Morrow: BOOK REVIEW by Esther Nelson

Dr. Morrow’s book is a treasure chest of facts that also includes a wide variety of scholarly opinions regarding hijab. His meticulous scholarship, laser-like vision, and accessible writing style clearly differentiate between what the Qur’an requires of women’s dress and what the jurists (overwhelmingly male) have enforced. Morrow’s book would be an invaluable addition to Islamic Studies curricula in the academy, yet it’s comprehensible enough to a lay person interested in learning about hijab.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this substantial volume. I got a fuller picture of the meaning of hijab over time. Dr. Morrow is clear—women ought not to be forced (legally or socially) to wear hijab. Muslims are fond of saying: There is no priesthood in Islam. There is no mediator between an individual and Allah. Yet, many Muslim clergy enforce a patriarchal bent (that social system absorbed from their culture and society) to their juristic rulings that constrict women from making a free choice.

The Journal Gender a výzkum/ Gender and Research

I would like to introduce this community to Gender a výzkum (in Czech) or Gender and Research (in English), a transdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal founded in the year 2000 and dedicated to research in Feminist and Gender Studies in the Czech Republic. While the journal’s main focus is work pertaining to Central and Eastern Europe, it is open to a wide range of geographical locations and topics. The journal, which publishes articles in Czech and English, often puts out calls for individuals or groups of people to edit monothematic issues. Past monothematic issues include feminist reflections on Covid, an issue on the use of language concerning sex and gender, gender in popular culture, children, adolescence and sexuality, feminist interpretations of Islam, and postcolonial and decolonial thinking in feminist theory to name just some. If you would like to read them, the journal is available online as well as in print.

From the Archives: Earth-Spirituality in the Qur’an and Green Muslims by Elisabeth S.

This was originally posted on March 14, 2017

There is some very helpful guidance in the Qur’an for how we should and should not treat the earth. In my exploration of Qur’anic verses on the environment, I have found a great deal of Earth-love that I want to share.

The first idea is that the earth is not ours to trash and misuse recklessly or indulgently. Sura 2:284 says, “Whatever is in the heavens and in the earth belongs to God.” This sentiment is found throughout the scriptures. Individual wealth and the practice of financial profit and salary as reward has given us the illusion that, if we’ve earned the cash, we can do with it whatever we like. We can buy anything we want, show it off, hoard it, and then trash it. How often do we quell our suffering or attachments through consumerism as if there were no consequences? But we need to begin to shift to the perspective of honoring the earth as not something we are entitled to or even deserve. If we are supposed to be stewards of the earth, then fine. But it seems that selfishness and personal gain have distracted us, making us neglect our duty. The idea that the earth is a bestowed gift is embedded into the Qur’anic “golden rule”: “You who believe, give charitably from the good things you have acquired and that We have produced for you from the earth. Do not seek to give bad things that you yourself would only accept with your eyes closed” (2:267). Yes, we work the land to produce food, but not everything is within our jurisdiction.

Women, Life, Freedom زن زندگی آزادی : Let’s talk about the protests in Iran by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

Trigger Warning: This post deals with violence towards women, violence towards humans, and egregious abuses of power.

Women, Life, Freedom; Zan, Zendegī, Āzādī; زن زندگی آزادی has become one of the main slogans for an incredibly important and crucial global protest that is taking place right now. For over 2 months, life and death protests are taking place in Iran. The protests are focusing on the perpetual degradation of human rights with women bearing a large brunt. Many have declared the current state affairs as gender apartheid. We need to be talking more about what is happening with the people of Iran and how best to support them. The protests were started after the brutal murder of a woman due to a portion of her hair being visible outside of her hijab.

From the Archives: Slavery and God/dess by amina wadud

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade. They tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted January 28, 2014. You can visit it he r e to see the original comments.

Well the Golden Globe awards have been handed out. I don’t have a television, so I didn’t actually watch, but a quick google search gives the results. Highest honors go to a movie about blacks as slaves and whites as criminals. That’s appropriate.

But this is feminism and religion, so let me get to the point. It’s about a chance discussion on social media about the “merciful god” and historical institutions like slavery (holocaust, or oppressions like misogyny, homophobia, Islamaphobia and others…).

My view of the divine, the cosmos and of the world is shaped by my slave ancestry. Recent area studies about Islam in America estimate that one third of the Africans forced to the Americas were Muslim. My first African relative on US soil identified as Moor (another term used for “Muslim”). But Islam did not survive slavery.