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http://www.jus.uio.no/smr/english/about/programmes/oslocoalition/news/booklaunch-news.html
Gender & Equality in Muslim Family Law
The Oslo Coalition's 2nd book in the series on new directions in Islam is: Gender
and Equality in Muslim Family Law: Justice and Ethics in the Islamic Legal
Tradition.
Gender equality is a modern ideal, which has only recently, with the
expansion of human rights and feminist discourses, become inherent to generally
accepted conceptions of justice. In Islam, as in other religious traditions,
the idea of equality between men and women was neither central to notions of
justice nor part of the juristic landscape, and Muslim jurists did not begin to
address it until the twentieth century. The personal status of Muslim men,
women and children continues to be defined by understandings of Islamic law -
codified and adapted by modern nation-states - that assume authority to be the
natural prerogative of men, that disadvantage women and that are prone to
abuse. This volume argues that effective and sustainable reform of these laws and
practices requires engagement with their religious rationales from within the
tradition. Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law offers a ground-breaking
analysis of family law, based on fieldwork in family courts, and illuminated by
insights from distinguished clerics and scholars of Islam from Morocco, Egypt,
Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia, as well as by the experience of human rights and
women's rights activists.
It explores how male authority is sustained through law and court practice
in different contexts, the consequences for women and the family, and the
demands made by Muslim women's groups. The book argues for women's full
equality before the law by re-examining the jurisprudential and theological
arguments for male guardianship (qiwama, wilaya) in Islamic legal tradition.
Using contemporary examples from various contexts, from Morocco to Malaysia,
this volume presents an informative and vital analysis of these societies and
gender relations within them. It unpicks the complex and often contradictory
attitudes towards Muslim family law, and the ways in which justice and ethics
are conceived in the Islamic tradition. The book offers a new framework for
rethinking old formulations so as to reflect contemporary realities and
understandings of justice, ethics and gender rights.
The book was edited by: Lena Larsen, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Christian Moe, Kari
Vogt.