muftis on women and gender matters. Moving to the modern and contemporary periods, the course

Transcription

1 Oberlin College Department of History and MENA Program His-217, Spring 2010 Women and Gender in Islamic Law and Modern Legal Codes Professor Zeinab Abul-Magd TR 03:00-04:15pm KING 323 E.mail: Office: Rice 301 Phone: Office hours: Monday 1:00-2:00pm, Wednesday 1:00-2:00pm, and by appointment Course Description: Issues of Muslim women, such as the headscarf or honor killing, are hot subjects in global news today. Are Middle Eastern women exceptionally oppressed? Is their oppression rooted in Islam as a religion? This course answers these questions through following the history of women and law in the Middle East and North Africa from the rise of Islam until the present. It surveys major changes in Middle Eastern history and relevant legal transformations, and how they affected gender relations and the status of women in Muslim societies. It begins with studying how the Qur an, the Holy Scripture of Muslims, and Hadith, Prophet Muhammad s traditions, viewed issues of marriage, divorce, polygamy, the veil, women s political participation, etc. Then it moves to study classical Islamic law, largely known as shari a or fiqh, and how its various theories and schools used different interpretations of the Qur an to reach different rulings, either liberal or conservative, on Muslim women s rights. In medieval Islamic times, the course looks at Islamic court practices and visions of muftis on women and gender matters. Moving to the modern and contemporary periods, the course looks at the formation of the nation-state in the Middle East, under European colonialism and during the post-colonial era, and how the personal status codes that the modern state promulgated expanded or limited women s rights. It follows how feminists and Islamists in the region contested each other to influence the formation and reform of these modern laws. Finally, it studies how the discourse of International Human Rights seeks to impact women s rights in the Middle East. Countries such as Egypt, Iran, Morocco, Algeria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and more are explored as case studies. Course Assignments: (1) Class attendance and participation (25%) (2) Response Paper (3 pages), on the assigned readings of any session of your choice, Due first half of semester (15%) (3) Midterm Exam (20%) March 23 rd (4) Legal Commentary and Presentation on a legal code/court case/or fatwa (3 pages) (Group Papers and Presentations) Due May 4 th or May 6 th (15%) (5) Final Paper (10-12 pages) (25%)

2 Required Textbooks: (Available at Oberlin Bookstore) - Nikki R. Keddie, Women in the Middle East Past and Present - Judith Tucker, Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law - Amira El Azhary Sonbol, Beyond the Exotic: Women's Histories in Islamic societies - Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and the Nation - Mounira Charrad, State and Women's Rights: the Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco - Ziba Mir-Housseini, Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran - Barbara Stowasser and Yvonne Haddad, Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity Schedule of Classes Week 1 Introduction T Feb 9 Introduction & General History of Women and Gender in MENA R Feb 11 Nikki R. Keddie, Women in the Middle East Past and Present, intro, ch.1-2, pp Week 2 General History of Women and Gender in MENA T Feb 16 Nikki R. Keddie, Women in the Middle East Past and Present, ch.3,4,5, pp R Feb 18 Nikki R. Keddie,Women in the Middle East Past and Present, pp Week 3 Women and Gender in Qur an and Hadith T Feb 23 Denise Spellberg, History Then, History Now: The Role of Medieval Islamic Religio- Political Sources in Shaping the Modern Debate on Gender ; Barbara Stowasser, The Qur an and History, in Amira Sonbol, Beyond the Exotic, pp R Feb 25 Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's rights in Islam, ch.2,3,4 pp (On Blackboard)

3 Week 4 Women and Gender in Classical Islamic Law T March 2 Judith E. Tucker, Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law, pp R March 4 Judith E. Tucker, Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law, , , Week 5 Shari a Courts and Fatwas T March 9 Fatima Zohra Guechi, Mahkama Records as a Source for Women s History: The Case of Constantine ; Amira Sonbol, Mixed and Other Courts: Women and Modern Patriarchy, In Amira Sonbol, Beyond the Exotic, ch. 11 pp , ch.14 pp R March 11 Judith Tucker, And God Knows Best : The Fatwa as a Source for the History of Gender in the Arab World ; Elyse Semerdjian, Gender Violence in Kanunnames and Fetvas of the Sixteenth Century, in Amira Sonbol, Beyond the Exotic Ch , pp Week 6 Women s Property, Women as Property T March 16 Fariba Zarinbaf, Women, Patronage, and Charity in Ottoman Istanbul, ; Randi Degulhem, Consciousness of Self: The Muslim Women as Creator and Manager of Waqf Foundations in Late Ottoman Damascus, in Amira Sonbol, Beyond the Exotic, ch.6,7, pp R March 18 Nelly Hannad, Sources of the Study of Slave Women and Concubines in Ottoman Egypt ; Madeline Zlifi, Thoughts on Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Era and Historical Sources, in Amira Sonbol, Beyond the Exotic, ch. 8-9, pp Week 7 T March 23 Midterm Exam R March 25 Film: Ziba Mir-Housseini, Divorce Iranian Style (80min) Week 8 Enjoy Spring Break! Week 9 T April 6

4 Colonialism, Feminism, and Formation of Nation-States Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and the Nation, ch. 5,7,9,11, pp , , , R April 8 Mounira Charrad, States and Women's Rights: the Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, Part II, pp Week 10 Islamic Law and the Modern State T April 13 Mounira Charrad, States and Women's Rights: the Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, Part III and conclusion, pp R April 15 Ziba Mir-Housseini, Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran, intro pp. 3-20, ch , ch. 7 pp Week 11 Human Rights, Islamism, and Feminism T April 20 Human Rights Paradigm: -Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Internationalizing the Conversation on Women s Rights: Arab Countries Face the CEDWA Committee, in Stowasser and Haddad, Islamic Law and Challenges of Modernity, ch. 5, ch Arab Human Development Report on Arab Women (2005) Lila Abu-Lughod, DIALECTS OF WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT: THE INTERNATIONAL CIRCUITRY OF THE ARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005 International Journal of Middle East Studies, Volume 41, Issue 01, Feb 2009, pp 103a- 103a R April 22 -Mervat Hatem, The History of the Discourses on Gender and Islamism in Contemporary Egypt ( ), in Amira Sonbol, Beyond the Exotic, pp Lama Abu-Odeh, Egyptian Feminism: Trapped in the Identity Debate, in Stowasser and Haddad, Islamic Law and Challenges of Modernity, pp Week 12 T April 27 - Annelies Moors, Introduction: Public Debates on Family Law Reform Participants,

5 Recent Debates on Personal Status Codes Positions, and Styles of Argumentation in the 1990s, Islamic Law and Society, Vol. 10, No. 1, (2003), pp Lynn Welchman, In the Interim: Civil Society, the Shar Judiciary and Palestinian Personal Status Law in the Transitional Period, Islamic Law and Society, Vol. 10, No. 1, (2003), pp R April 29 Zeinab Abul-Magd and Barbara Stowasser, Tahlil Marriage in Shari a, Legal Codes, and Contemporary Fatwa Literature, in Stowasser and Haddad, Islamic Law and Challenges of Modernity, pp Week 13 Legal Analysis: Court Cases, laws, or Fatwas T May 4 Legal Analysis: Court Cases, laws, or Fatwa Group Legal Commentary Paper and Presentation Due R May 6 Week 14 T May 11 Legal Analysis: Court Cases, laws, or Fatwa Group Legal Commentary Paper and Presentation Due The Veil and Shari a Today -Film: They Call me Muslim, 2006 (on the veil in France and Iran, 27min) -Caitlin Killian, The Other Side of the Veil: North African Women in France Respond to the Headscarf Affair, Gender and Society, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Aug., 2003), pp URL: R May 13 Discussion of Final Paper Topics & Conclusion