“She did not come from his rib”: Questioning Agency and Empowerment in Islamic Feminism

Abstract

The aim of this article is to address the Western feminist gaze towards the Muslimwoman, a neologism miriam cooke (2007) invented, which shares the same features of the Third World Woman depicted by Mohanty (1988). The idea is to shed light on productive ways of relating to religion when it comes to Islamic Feminism in particular. My argumentation proceeds as follows: after a brief introduction on the relationship between gender and religion nowadays, as a starting point for my analysis I will illustrate how religion can be employed as a source of agency and its empowering character. Agency has always been conceptualised as a form of resistance and subversion against power, however, other scholars suggest different perspectives. I will introduce and discuss them to deconstruct the idea that every religious woman needs to be saved. I will proceed by deconstructing the “Muslimwoman” neologism to provide a decolonial and intersectional reading of the relationship between gender and religion. To conclude, I will draw from the tools provided by Asma Lamrabet’s reading of the Qur’an to explore the decolonial power of a pious but critical religious practice.