Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives » (1st Edition)

The first Saudi Arabian woman to ean a docorate from Oxford, Mai Yamani is Research associate at the Center of Ixlamic and Middle Eastern law at the School of oriental and African Studies of the University of London.

In an age when Western feminism is continuously undergoing redefinition, the struggles of women in Muslim countries are often overlooked. This volume illustrates how women in Islamic societies have become more actively involved not only in learning their rights under the sharia (Islamic law) but in rereading this law to improve their status and gain increased equality and freedom. Surveying Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and Arab societies in general, the essays in feminism and Islam focus on such subjects as crimes of honor and the construction of gender in Arab societies; law and the desire for social control; women ad entrepreneurship; family legislation; and the political strategies of feminists in the Islam world.