Contesting Justice- Women, Islam, Law , and Society; SUNY Press, 195 pp., by A. Souaiaia; Appendices , Bibliography, Index; $70.00 (hardcover, 2008), ISBN13: 978-0-7914-7397-9; $20.95 (paperback, 2009), ISBN13: 978-0-7914-7398-6;
Reviewed by: Adis Duderija [Centre for Muslim States and Societies, University of Western Australia]
Over the last two decades in particular a significant number of scholarly books and articles have been written by Muslim female and male scholars on the subject of what we could broadly term women emancipation on the basis of novel approaches to Islamic hermeneutics and Islamic legal theory (usul-ul fiqh). The works of scholars such as A.Wadud, H. Baranzagi, Z. Mir-Hosseini, Abou El-Fadl, F. Esack and A. Barlas, to name but a few, come to mind. These works primarily focused on exposing, explaining, contesting and dislodging the male epistemic privilege in the formation and interpretation of religious sciences and tradition seen as the principal culprits for the andocentric, patriarchal and misogynist elements that persist in the understanding and interpretation of the Islamic tradition and its fountainheads, the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Moreover these women unfriendly (to put it mildly) dimensions of the Islamic tradition were considered as significantly contributing to the unenviable legal, political and economic status of Muslim women both in the historical and in the contemporary context. The solution advocated by these scholars was primarily restricted to the call for the inclusion of women’s voices and opinions in the interpretive processes and the subsequent demands for legal reform based on alternative more women egalitarian or just interpretations of the Islamic tradition. For reasons outlined below A. Souaiaia’s book under review is both a continuation of and a significant departure from this body of scholarly knowledge.