Talk:Islamic feminism/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

This article makes zero sense

I have a degree in Islam and I have dedicated tons of time on here to improving coverage of women in Islam. This article is totally atrocious and borderline warrants a rewrite.

"As a "school of thought", it is said to refer to Moroccan sociologist "Fatema Mernissi and scholars such as Amina Wadud and Leila Ahmed".[4]"

What on earth does this mean? There are countless Muslim feminists.

"Advocates refer to the observation that Muslim majority countries produced several female heads of state, prime ministers, and state secretaries such as Lala Shovkat of Azerbaijan, Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Mame Madior Boye of Senegal, Tansu Çiller of Turkey, Kaqusha Jashari of Kosovo, and Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia. In Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia was elected the country's first female prime minister in 1991, and served as prime minister until 2009, when she was replaced by Sheikh Hasina, who maintains the prime minister's office at present making Bangladesh the country with the longest continuous female premiership.[5]"

This should not be in the lead. Presumably, not all of these women are Muslim feminists. Who are these advocates? What does this prove? That the Muslim world is sufficiently feminist?

"Islamic feminists interpret the religious texts in a feminist perspective."

What religious texts??? How?

"Umm Yasmin, of the Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam, says that feminism is often mistaken as a western movement,"

Who is this and why is she relevant?

Why is there a whole section on Islamists?

Huge amounts of people (Nazira Zein ad Dine, Doria Shafik, Huda Sharawi, etc) are missing from the article.

"Sufi groups such as Al-Ahbash do not make it mandatory for women to wear traditional Islamic clothing, even allowing jeans.[69]"

How is this related to Islamic feminism exactly?

"There is in fact strong support from most Muslim feminists in favor of the veil. Many Muslim men and women now view the veil as a symbol of Islamic freedom."

This is a WILDLY untrue generalization.

How is a hadith of Abu Hurayra a "critique" of Islamic feminism? He critiques a movement that didn't exist yet? ALmost nothing in this section is actually a critique of feminism. It's purely original research. --Zaynab1418 (talk) 08:58, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

"This is a WILDLY untrue generalization."

Ilhan Omar, Linda Sarsour, Leila Ahmed, Dalia Mogahed, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, and Amina Wadud are all prominent Muslim feminists who have a favorable view on voluntary veiling of women. Aronanki (talk) 16:26, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Re

Greetings @Zaynab1418:,

General observation

• ".. This article makes zero sense .. This article is totally atrocious and borderline warrants a rewrite .. "

You seem to have reasonably explained what you did not like and why

• ".. to improving coverage of women in Islam. .."

• Difference between Muslim .... and Islamic .... ?

• " .. I have a degree in Islam and I have dedicated tons of time on here .."

According to this tool report (as of now) you have been editing Wikipedia since almost 8 months approx. 900 plus edits in article namespace and created 11 new articles (mainly biographies) and that is admirable. Same time as in the prayers some one doing first time prayer and some one doing since long all are equal, similarly on Wikipedia usually all editors are considered equal, any one with a relevant and credible source can comfortably add information to Wikipedia.

This particular article seem to have considerable contribution from academic students (and many novice enthusiast, too), may be they were first time users and were not perfect, still we can respect their good faith efforts and correct them as needed.

Please feel free to update the article according to credible sources.

Specific to the point

• Women's rights in Islam and Muslim feminists both these titles seem to redirect here and you know both are actually wider topics and novice users coming from there can inadvertently end up adding info beyond the scope of Islamic feminism. Muslim traditionalists too agree to some rights for women in Islam but many of them may not understand and agree to 'Islamic feminist expectation' of maximum possible equal rights. On the other hand issue with term Muslim feminists, it includes secular Muslim feminists too and Islamic feminists prefer to have differences in outlook with secular Muslim feminist.

• ".. Islamic feminists interpret the religious texts in a feminist perspective. .."

Can you elaborate your point of view a little more about kind of disagreement you have with above statement?

IMHO let this article Islamic feminism primarily focus on Islamic feminist activism and let the article Hermeneutics of feminism in Islam focus on theoretical positioning of Islamic feminism.

What I would advice is, to first update Hermeneutics of feminism in Islam to it's best and take it's synopsis / summary in this article. I suppose that will help avoid mess up.

Thanks and warm regards and cheers

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 02:25, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Strange content deletion summary

User @Aronanki seems to have deleted following sourced content with a strange deletion criteria bordering to Takfiri . Their deletion summary says " Not clear if Alinejad considers herself a Muslim or not."

Islamic feminist philosophy and movement is much bigger than just one Masih Alinejad and not including some content regarding one 'Alinejad' is not going to make much difference to the article. What is concerning is the criteria mentioned in edit summary for deletion, IdK how do they reconcile with Wikipedia policies.

As per feedback received @ WP:Reference desk/Humanities 'Alinejad' is brought up Muslim. (Current status matter of further research)

Idk whether Islamic feminist has to be a Muslim. What if an activist or academic is not a Muslim or left Islam or some one with extreme views declared a Muslim too as non-Muslim (Takfiri), Whether Wikipedia will stop taking their references in the articles relating to Muslim world merely on such grounds? Does Wikipedia has any such existent policies.

Tomorrow some one may very well argue, any kind of feminism can not be Islamic, people engaging in feminism can not be Muslims, so Wikipedia should not have article with title 'Islamic feminism'. Idk, What reply Wikipedians would have for any such argument. To me such deletions sound like WP:IDONTLIKEIT.

Any ways deleted content was as follows

".. Masih Alinejad began the movement My Stealthy Freedom in protest of forced hijab policies in Iran. The movement began as a Facebook page where women uploaded pictures of themselves defying Iran's mandatory hijab laws. .."

References

One user assumed her to be Muslim and added her activism to this article on Islamic Feminism , while other user seem to doubt her Muslimness though she seems to have been brought up Muslim is known. Idk what are prevailing WP policies in this respect.

• I do not have issues if content is deleted on any other valid policies. Here I do have concern related to the reason given in edit summary only.

Bookku (talk) 07:59, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Whether Masih Alinejad is a Muslim or not is irrelevant—and whether we, as editors, consider her a Muslim is doubly irrelevant. We should always let reliable, secondary sources decide. (Of course, there may be exceptions based on other policies: WP:BLP, WP:UNDUE, etc. But I don't think any of those apply here.) Looking at the source, NHPR clearly considers Alinejad important enough to comment on the subject of headscarf/hijab issues in Iran, which this article covers. So yes, we should include this content. Woodroar (talk) 15:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

But the article is not on "women in Islam" or "women in Iran" or whatever, the article is on "Islamic feminism", i.e. the feminist movement(s) within Islam. There is nothing to indicate that Alinejad is primarily interested in reform of Islam along feminist lines, or that her activism has anything to do with any interpretation of Islamic principles. She is a political activist fighting against Islamic laws in Iran, her work is important to mention in the context of that discussion but that is not what this article is about. Unless we have statements from Alinejad indicating that she identifies as a Muslim feminist, or a source indicating that she is aligned with them or receiving public support from any self-identified Muslim/Islamic feminists, I do not think we should just presume that Alinejad's work and the anti-hijab mandate protests in Iran more generally are occurring under the framework of "Islamic feminism" just because Iran is a Muslim country. You are more than welcome to add this material to another article with a broader focus on women's rights in Islam and Islamic societies. Aronanki (talk) 15:21, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The article already includes a "Dress code" section, where we mention the hijab and burqa and France, the headscarf and Algeria, and the veil and Tunisia. How is this different? Woodroar (talk) 17:32, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I've restored the status quo for the time being. This has been in the article for at least 6 months, is supported by at least 3 editors, and it's in a section with similar content. After reading Masih Alinejad and My Stealthy Freedom and (some of) the available sources, I simply can't see how this content isn't relevant. Woodroar (talk) 16:38, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the dress code section.

The time article used as a reference that most Islamic feminists are in favor of the veil doesn't actually make any claim about whether this is the majority view or not, the article only includes the words of Leila Ahmed, however I didn't place (citation needed), and rather simply added whether to veil or not, because this is the stance of the majority since the majority of them don't believe it to be an obligation, but rather a choice that Muslim women are free to make, so they aren't in favor of wearing it only, but in fact a citation needed here would be more accurate.

About the "small fringe" that is used to describe feminists who oppose the veil, to make any claim about whether such stance is the minority or the majority you have to provide a citation that backs this up, saying that this is a small fringe minority would require an even stronger evidence from non-biased sources, but there are none cited, if there are no citations, then it is more appropriate to simply say "some" or "many". Mahmoud9896 (talk) 13:18, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The article makes no comment on the views of Islamic feminists on the theological semantics of veiling, it only says that Islamic feminists tend to look favorably on veiling as a symbol of "Islamic freedom" as the cited article said. It is also acknowledged in the same section that the veil is controversial IF it is a product of social pressure or coercion, which you seem to agree is the position of most Islamic feminists.

Wrt the wording some/many/small fringe, I guess saying "SOME Islamic feminists oppose the veil" is okay, it's a trivially correct statement whether it is 2% of Islamic feminists or 70% of Islamic feminists who oppose the veil. However the article simply was trying to point out that Islamic feminists are not consistently opposed to the veil itself, only to forcing it. Being against forced prayers or fasting would not constitute opposition to prayer or fasting, similarly opposition to forced hijab says nothing about the views of Islamic feminists or others on hijab itself as a religious/cultural/social practice.

Fwiw Pew polls indicate most American Muslim women veil, though I don't know how many identify themselves as feminists. However many prominent American Muslim feminists like Linda Sarsour, Ilhan Omar, Dalia Mogahed, and so on have publicly talked about hijab as being part of their feminism.

MisterMrX (talk) 18:54, 14 July 2023 (UTC) Strike confirmed sock of Aronanki comments Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 12:42, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Where does the article make a definitive statement about the collective stance of Islamic feminists? please cite the relevant quote here.

Also many Islamic feminists are opposed to veiling as a practice itself, including Mona Eltahawy, Fadela Amara, Hedi Mhenni, Masih Alinejad, Sihem Habchi. etc

The hijab has always been a controversial topic in feminist Islamic spaces, some have positive views of of it, some have negative views of it, some are neutral and just believe that it is a choice that women are free to make or not.

If you are going to cite how many wear the hijab as a form of Islamic freedom and justice and support it, you also have to mention the other negative view of it without bias, so that you can have a more balanced article.

Saying that only a small fringe portion of Islamic feminists oppose it sounds really biased and ideologically connated, better leave it at "some". which provides a more factual and neutral view of it. Mahmoud9896 (talk) 20:32, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

My only input here is to mention that we don't necessarily balance around showing positives and negatives. Our Neutral Point of View policy is that we balance in proportion to what reliable sources say. Of course, sometimes that does mean showing positives and negatives. Other times it means giving greater prominence to one view over another. And in extreme examples where most or all reliable sources agree that one side is right (say, homeopathy or vaccination or the Moon landing), that's what our articles should reflect. It's just something to keep in mind. Woodroar (talk) 21:10, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Understood, this makes perfect sense indeed, I will keep that in mind. Mahmoud9896 (talk) 21:17, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

This was exactly my problem with the section as originally written. At that time it was weighted way too strongly towards the position that Islamic feminists tend to actively oppose the veil, simply not in line with reality. Aronanki (talk) 21:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry I meant this Wiki article, not the Time article.

Anyway the point that this section is trying to get across as I said is that there is no universal opposition to the veil among Islamic feminists. Aronanki (talk) 23:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

It's not like anyone has done a poll of Muslim feminists, however one can observe general cultural and social trends.

Mona Eltahawy is not against hijab anymore. She has actually criticized European feminists harshly for their rhetoric against the veil.

Masih may not even be a Muslim, she has never made any public statements one way or the other. The others you mention are secular French Muslims.

It seems that there are very few actual "Islamic feminists" who oppose hijab. Most of the examples people can find seem to be secular Muslims who are operating from a secular framework and not within the confines of so-called "Islamic feminism". Most of the very prominent Islamic feminists like Leila Ahmed, Amina Wadud, Fatema Mernissi, Dalia Mogahed, Linda Sarsour are either fully pro-hijab or otherwise at least somewhat supportive. Aronanki (talk) 02:34, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

.. Masih may not even be a Muslim, she has never made any public statements one way or the other. The others you mention are secular French Muslims.

..It seems that there are very few actual "Islamic feminists" who oppose hijab. Most of the examples people can find seem to be secular Muslims who are operating from a secular framework and not within the confines of so-called "Islamic feminism". ..

I am afraid, above part of statement seem to border WP:OR if not carefully articulated may risk in WP:Synth. Bookku (talk) 04:14, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Please cite the relevant reference regarding Mona El Tahawy.

"Masih may not even be a Muslim, she has never made any public statements one way or the other. The others you mention are secular French Muslims."

I think you were corrected elsewhere in the article about this one, so there's no need to repeat it again.

Now lets start with each feminists you have cited here.

1-Leila Ahmed isn't either pro or anti Hijab, she says that the meaning of hijab is always local, while she acknowledges that in the US the hijab is positive, she acknowledges that elsewhere in many Muslim countries it is negative.

2-Amina Wadud is another one with a moderate stance on hijab, she believes that it isn't religiously required, but it is a choice women are free to make.

3-Fatima Mernissi is the worst example you can use here, she considers it to be a part of the gender-segregation ideal that traditionalist Islam promotes, which seeks to separate women from the public realm, and confine them to the private space, she says in her book veil and the male elite the following quote about the hijab.

"So it is strange indeed to observe the modern course of this

concept, which from the beginning had such a strongly negative

connotation in the Koran. The very sign of the person who is

damned, excluded from the privileges and spiritual grace to which

the Muslim has access, is claimed in our day as a symbol of

Muslim identity, manna for the Muslim woman"

About Dalia Mogahed and Linda Sarsour, yes you are correct.

But on the other hand, you also have feminists like Irshad Manji, Fatima Mernissi, Mona el Tahawy, Olfa Youssef. and many other feminists that are mentioned in the article who have criticized the hijab, historically you also have feminists like Huda Shaarawy, Saiza Nabarawi, Nabawiyyah Musah who were also anti-veiling. Mahmoud9896 (talk) 04:36, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

@Mahmoud9896 It's good that you found out those sock accounts that much confusion is less.

• ".. A small fringe of Islamic feminists,.. oppose hijab.. " This was earlier version
• ".. Some Islamic feminists ,.. oppose hijab.. " was your first change
• ".. On the other side, many Islamic feminists,,.. oppose hijab.. " this was another change you had accepted.

As far as my readings of Islamic feminism goes they hold diverse opinions. Rather than quantifying that (Without support of any RS) how about saying either 'Islamic feminists hold diverse opinions' or 'Islamic feminists hold mixed opinions'? Bookku (talk) 12:40, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I highly agree with that, I really found that the paragraph " the veil is not controversial in mainstream Islamic feminist discourse" was somewhat inaccurate.

Also I didn't like how "manys" there are, so less quantifying is better. Mahmoud9896 (talk) 17:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)