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Women, Sexism and Classical Islam

            Leila Ahmed corroborated that autonomy and participation of women were curtailed with the establishment of Islam and steadily declined in the Islamic period. However, Homa Hoodfar alluded that Muslim women could employ veiling, a symbol of oppression, for their empowerment. How do you understand the seemingly opposing arguments of these two Muslim feminists? Or do you find common ground in their discourse about the status of women in Islam? In your opinion, how their approaches are significant for the Muslim women to challenge oppressive structures and practices?.
             Leila Ahmed's main argument as demonstrated in "women and gender in Islam" surrounds the topics about status of women in Islam and the rise of the oppressive society that leaves women with nearly no rights to live by. She argues over the issue of male dominancy and their oppressive practices that are due to the commonness of the patriarchal interpretations of the religion. Leila achieves to compare the changing time to the pre-Islamic era, where women had liberty to fulfill their wishes rather than being dominantly put down by the men of the society. In pre-Islamic era, uxorilocal marriages were much more in practice that clearly claims the difference between the status of women and men. Such marriages are done upon the agreement of husbands over living in with the wife in her father's house and giving her surname to their future generation. Also, polyandry was very common and openly practiced where women were allowed to take more than two husbands at the same time. The cultures and traditions also allowed men to have more than a couple of wives at the same time. As time changed, misogyny started coming into practice where women were hated and disliked. During that particular time, female infanticide was regarded normal. It is said that during the time of pre-Islamic Arabia, there was not a fixed institution of marriage and that patrilineal and patriarchal marriage were not the only legitimate forms of practiced marriages.


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