No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
The Politics and Hermeneutics of Hijab in Iran: From Confinement to Choice
Abstract
Hijab - covering of a Muslim woman's body - is the most visible Islamic mandate. For a century it has been a major site of ideological struggle between traditionalism and modernity, and a yardstick for measuring the emancipation or repression of Muslim women. In recent decades hijab has become an arena where Islamist and secular feminist rhetoric have clashed. For Islamists, hijab represents their distinct identity and their claim to religious authenticity: it as a divine mandate that protects women and defines their place in society. For secular feminists, hijab represents women's oppression: it is a patriarchal mandate that denies women the right to control their bodies and to choose what to wear. The clash has been particularly strident in Iran, where the state has twice intervened with legislation to an extent that no other Muslim country has experienced. Iran, too, has been a prime site for the emergence of 'Islamic feminist' discourses that speak of hijab not as a 'duty,' but as a 'right,' and as a social rather than a religious mandate, and finds juristic arguments to support this position. This article traces the genealogy of this new juristic position from notions of hijab in classical Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). It documents how jurisprudential positions and notions of hijab in Iran evolved in response to socio-political factors. It concludes by highlighting wider implications of the new juristic position on hijab for establishing common ground between secular feminist and Islamic discourses.
... 5 (74) 2 Previous research This section engages with previous research on compulsory hijab. Hijab research is not new in social sciences, and it has been discussed for many years; Even though hijab has been mentioned as a sign of Muslim women all over the world (Mohammadi, 2016;Ahmadi, 2006;Mir-Hosseini, 2007;Derayeh, 2011;Safitri, 2010), this issue has become more political than cultural or religious in Iran due to the fusion of politics and religion (Safitri, 2010;Sedghi, 2007;Afshar, 2008;Gould, 2014;Mir-Hosseini, 2007). Texts with post-colonial and feminist approaches are chosen to review previous research. ...
... 5 (74) 2 Previous research This section engages with previous research on compulsory hijab. Hijab research is not new in social sciences, and it has been discussed for many years; Even though hijab has been mentioned as a sign of Muslim women all over the world (Mohammadi, 2016;Ahmadi, 2006;Mir-Hosseini, 2007;Derayeh, 2011;Safitri, 2010), this issue has become more political than cultural or religious in Iran due to the fusion of politics and religion (Safitri, 2010;Sedghi, 2007;Afshar, 2008;Gould, 2014;Mir-Hosseini, 2007). Texts with post-colonial and feminist approaches are chosen to review previous research. ...
... What is said about the hijab in the West is that the hijab is a restrictive tool for women that deprives them of their social freedoms. At the same time, it is also seen as a mean of resistance for women to stand against sexual and gender discrimination introduced by the IRR and society (Afary, 2009;Ahmadi, 2006;Bagheri, 2017;Bilge, 2010;Derayeh, 2011;Mir-Hosseini, 2007;Safitri, 2010). Sedghi (2007), in her book 'Women and Politics in Iran: Veiling, Unveiling, and Reveiling' said: ...
The thesis examines the concept of mandatory hijab as a tool for governing female bodies by providing them with different roles, values, and positions in society, based on hierarchical classification. While the number of educated and working women has increased in Iran, gender-based violence has increased. Moreover, the government has increased efforts to limit and contain the social activities of women in accordance with the Islamic Republic's mandatory hijab. The goal of this dissertation is to argue about compulsory hijab which is more than compulsory veiling in Iran. It pushes women to be isolated and affects people's everyday life. For this reason, meaning and functions of compulsory hijab in men and women's daily life are examined by the analyses of conducted qualitative interviews. The importance of this research is about women's resistance. It demonstrates how limitation and containment contribute to violence against women and push women and men to accept unequal roles, values and positions. When we have a better insight of compulsory hijab's dimensions, then we can understand its structure and we will find better ways to resist.
... The decision whether to wear hijab is deeply rooted in one's religiosity (Syahrivar, 2020). For Islamists in general, hijab represents a distinct identity and their claim to religious authenticity (Mir-Hosseini, 2007). Grine and Saeed (2017) indicated that women in multicultural societies often choose to wear a hijab to represent their morality and religious obligation, but those who come from non-religious backgrounds often see hijab as a fashion statement, rather than a representation of their religious values. ...
... Quamar (2016) argued that many Saudi Arabian women (a country where there are many similarities with Iran in terms of women's roles) do not believe that veiling is a barrier to their success or leisure pursuits. Yet for secular women and from a feminist perspective, the hijab symbolizes gender inequality and injustice, as it takes away women's rights to control how they present their bodies (Mir-Hosseini, 2007). Minai (1981, as cited in Koo & Han, 2018 argued that "Islamists oppose feminism, that is, women's acts of resistance against men, for the sake of improving their social status, and insist that they should fulfill their roles as mothers and wives" (p. ...
... Contrary to the findings of Quamar (2016), the participants of this study see hijab as a barrier to their success and personal goals. As revealed by the two themes of Help vs. Hindrance and Placing Blame, they perceive mandatory hijab as a symbol of gender inequality (Mir-Hosseini, 2007) and a way to distract people from the government's totalitarian rule in the country. The women in this study do not see hijab as a safeguard, but as a limitation and a means of preventing them from fully actualizing the self. ...
Hijab is mandatory for every woman in Iran. However, while some women adhere to the strict guidelines and cover their hair and body when in public, others wear hijab only to the extent that they avoid breaking the law, a practice known as bad-hijabi. Recent studies have explored Iranian women's willingness to protest hijab through their social media activities. However, few studies have examined bad-hijabi as another form of resistance. The purpose of this study was to explore the topic of bad-hijabi from the perspective of women who have worn badhijabi. In-depth interviews were conducted with twenty Iranian women and a thematic interpretation of the data revealed that they use badhijabi to compensate for the inability to freely express the self through appearance, as well as to dissociate from messages communicated by hijab. Further research is needed on how bad-hijabi impacts the complex meanings communicated by women's appearance in Iran.
... Also, dividing practices are applied even in the socalled democratic societies, as evidenced in the US's restrictive abortion legalisations (Davis 2022) or the European countries' regulations of headscarves (Lettinga and Saharso 2014). In this regard, Mir-Hosseini (2007) revealed how actors invoked intertextual arguments to legalise the Islamic dress code called hijab for women in Muslim-majority Iranian society. Moreover, scholars analysed that the female body was represented as the bearer of national identity leading to the exclusion of deviant subjects (Rahbari, Longman, and Coene 2019;Shakhsari 2013). ...
How do authoritarian actors seek to justify their interventionist gendered policies? The study bridges the authoritarian governmentality scholarship with Epistemic Governance theory to disclose epistemic politics in interventionist policymaking. It gathers textual data from political leaders and influential actors to investigate the epistemic practices around the justifications of two culture-shaping policies on Iranian women’s attire: the ‘unveiling’ policy banning all women’s head covers in the 1930s and the ‘mandatory veiling’ laws in the 1980s. Foucauldian discourse analysis as elaborated in Epistemic Governance analytic is applied to scrutinise how women’s attires were problematised in both cases and how exclusionary measures were justified. The findings reveal that in the 1930s, veiling was represented as the dangerous embodied emblem of backwardness that must be excluded in the urgent context of national progress. In contrast, unveiling, as the marker of cultural colonialism, was prohibited in the context of the necessity to protect the counter-hegemonic national values in the 1980s. These findings highlight recontextualisation practices turning women’s attire into a matter of national security that justify pastoral power for governmental interventions. The study hence warns against (in-)security politics in authoritarian governance whereby any epistemic field is depoliticised, and public opinion is conducted towards interventionist policies.
... The protest is connected to the long history of resistance against the regime's gender politics. Iranian women have been fi ghting this battle since the beginning of the revolution, refusing to submit to such dress codes (e.g., Rahbari, Longman and Coene 2019;Mir-Hosseini 2007). One contemporary example of such resistance that was formed in a more organized way is the My Stealthy Freedom activist movement, initiated in 2014 by Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad, now in exile. ...
In this essay, I draw on the lyrics of a viral song by Shervin Hajipour titled “Baraye” (meaning: for the sake of) that was released on 28 September 2022 and immediately became the anthem of the protests in Iran. I quote excerpts of the lyrics in three sections of this essay, connecting them to the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” chanted in the streets and the symbolic act of cutting one’s hair that has come to represent the protests. In the first of these sections, on woman, I reflect on the regime’s gender politics (of hair), arguing that the act of cutting one’s hair becomes a symbolic act of resisting such gender politics. In the second section, on life, I focus on the act of cutting hair as a mode of mourning the unjust and untimely deaths, for which accountability is demanded. In the last section, on freedom, I focus on the sexual politics of hair and the politics of the veil. I argue that cutting one’s hair is a symbolic act of resisting modes of sexualization that are used by the regime to justify mandatory hijab. Putting together the three parts – woman, life, freedom – I conclude that cutting one’s hair is a feminist act of resistance, an exercise of agency through which Iranian women are taking control and reclaiming their womanhood, their lives, their bodies and their freedom of choice.
... In Iranian contemporary history, i.e. since the Qajar Era, hijab, a covering for the whole body worn by women in public, has been of great importance (Najmabadi, 2005). In general, hijab signifies female bodies being covered in social relations as necessitated by Islamic teachings ; however, there are serious contentions as to the Islamic origin of the obligatory nature of hijab (see, for example, Mir-Hosseini, 2007). Yet, hijab is a social issue of great importance in the Islamic culture of Iran, and the everyday life of women is substantially influenced by it. ...
... Religious symbols tend to be highly multivocal or polysemous (Turner, 1967, p. 50): they can stand for multiple, seemingly contradictory meanings, which can also emerge and change over time. For example, there is a traditional Islamic legal discourse that explains hijab in terms of women's duty to avoid arousing male passions and causing seduction/social strife (fitna), and a modern Muslim women's discourse of the hijab as an individual right, a personal choice, an expression of their Muslim identity and a protection against harassment; today, these discourses co-exist uneasily (see, e.g., Mir-Hosseini, 2007). Even the notion that the crucifix could stand for secularism should not be dismissed out of hand. ...
This focus issue of CEPS Journal raises two topics usually treated separately, Religious Education and the use of religious symbols in public schools. Both involve the challenge of applying liberal democratic principles of secularism and pluralism in a school setting and refract policies on religion under conditions of globalisation, modernisation and migration. I take this situation as a teachable moment and argue that it illustrates the potential of a particular kind of Religious Education, based on the scientific Study of Religion, for making sense of current debates in Europe, including the debate on religious education itself. However, this requires maintaining a spirit of free, unbiased comparative enquiry that may clash with political attempts to instrumentalise the subject as a means of integrating minority students into a value system.
... Such research has been undertaken since the late 1990s in several countries such as Egypt, Iran, the USA, the Netherlands, France, and Turkey (Gökariksel and Anna Secor 2012;Hoodfar, Homa. 2001;Karim 2006;Killian 2003;Laborde 2006;MacLeod 1993;Mir-Hosseini 2007;Nieukerk 2008;Sandikci and Ger 2010;Williams and Vashi 2007;Zuhur, Sherifa. 1992;Williams 1979). ...
... However, in Muslim countries, religious veiling enables women to participate in economic opportunities outside the home while still avoiding the intense feeling of vulnerability upon being exposed to the world (Renne, 2013). Some scholars argue that religious veiling is a patriarchal mandate (Mir-Hosseini, 2007), whereas others argue that veiling provides the opportunity for Muslim women to enjoy their chicness, decency, and modesty in public (Renne, 2013). ...
There are very few experimental studies regarding religious clothing. In the current study, we hypothesized that the function of conservative clothing hiding female curvaceous body features is to restrict visual access and consequently decreases female physical attractiveness. Using eye-tracking, we quantified dwell times and number of fixations on religious clothing, ranging from conservative to liberal. Results showed that conservative religious clothing decreased visual access to female curvaceous body features and instead focused visual attention to the head/face region. Results were discussed in terms of the roles of conservative clothing in women’s clothing choice, men’s mate retention tactics, and parent-offspring conflict over mate choice.
... In Muslim regions, veiling allows women to participate in outdoor activities in a socially sanctioned way (Carvalho 2013;Renne 2013). Some scholars have argued that religious veiling is a patriarchal mandate that symbolizes and contributes to the subjugation of women (Mir-Hosseini 2007), and others argue that veiling provides an opportunity for Muslim women to enjoy public life while still enjoying anonymity (Renne 2013). ...
Male parental investment can contribute to the fitness of both sexes through increased fertility and child survivorship. The level and intensity of parental investment are dependent upon ecological variations: in harsh and demanding environments, the need for biparental care increases. Moreover, when environmental pressures increase, uncertainty over paternity may lead to favoring stricter mate-guarding practices, thus directing males to invest more effort toward controlling and guarding their mates from infidelity. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that religious veiling, as a social and cultural practice which regulates and restricts sexuality, will be more important in harsher environments. Our results show that harsh and demanding environments are associated with the importance of religious veiling and the level of religiosity, providing a link between cultural practices such as religious veiling and ecological variation.
... Such research has been undertaken since the late 1990s in several countries such as Egypt, Iran, the USA, the Netherlands, France, and Turkey (Gökariksel and Anna Secor 2012;Hoodfar, Homa. 2001;Karim 2006;Killian 2003;Laborde 2006;MacLeod 1993;Mir-Hosseini 2007;Nieukerk 2008;Sandikci and Ger 2010;Williams and Vashi 2007;Zuhur, Sherifa. 1992;Williams 1979). ...
Chapter 4 demonstrates that more than half of respondents when viewing the veil as a fashion item feel guilty because they believe that it contradicts Islamic principles of modesty. The concept of modesty in Islam is explored in this chapter, as is fitna, in which women are always seemingly guilty for tempting men and are therefore responsible for hiding this power.
... Such research has been undertaken since the late 1990s in several countries such as Egypt, Iran, the USA, the Netherlands, France, and Turkey (Gökariksel and Anna Secor 2012;Hoodfar, Homa. 2001;Karim 2006;Killian 2003;Laborde 2006;MacLeod 1993;Mir-Hosseini 2007;Nieukerk 2008;Sandikci and Ger 2010;Williams and Vashi 2007;Zuhur, Sherifa. 1992;Williams 1979). ...
Chapter 3 presents the findings of the main purpose of the study, that is to ascertain the motivation of those women who veil, and to explore the attitudes of those who do not veil, towards those who do. Reasons for veiling are explored as identified by respondents, including family pressures, religious pressures, peer pressure, affirming Muslim identity, seeking to stand against Western consumer culture, to avoid unwanted male attention, to wear it as a fashion item, for better public reputation, or any other reason identified by the respondent. The findings are presented and then discussed in relation to the comments made by respondents and their perceptions of these important elements.
... This concern firstly resonates with the 'headscarf controversies' that have been taking place in Belgium since 2003 (see above). Yet besides addressing this public controversy, these interrogations of the hijab also resonated with discussions within the Muslim tradition (Mernissi, 1975;Ahmed, 1992;El Guindi, 1999;Babès, 2004;Mir-Hosseini, 2007;Lazreg, 2009). In using the notion of tradition, I draw on Talal Asad's usage of the term that he defines as 'discourses that seek to instruct practitioners regarding the correct form and purpose of a given practice that, precisely because it is established, has a history' (1986: 14; see also Amir-Moazami and Salvatore, 2003). ...
The practice of Islamic veiling has over the last ten years emerged into a popular site of investigation. Different researchers have focused on the various significations of this bodily practice, both in its gendered dimensions, its identity components, its empowering potentials, as a satorial practice or as part of a broader economy of bodily practices which shape pious dispositions in accordance with the Islamic tradition. Lesser, however, has this been the case for the practice of not veiling or unveiling. If and when attention is accorded to the latter, it is often grasped as a product of integration or an effect secular governmentality, but only rarely as a bodily practice. Drawing on narratives of second generation secular and religious Maghrebi Muslims in Belgium, this paper pursues this second perspective by examining to which extent not-veiling can be understood as a technique of the self (Foucault) that is functional to shaping a liberal (Musilm) subject. While a first part of this article will unpack the ethical substance of such discursive interrogations and point to the ways in which they are intertwined with the enactment of a liberal self, the second part will examine the embodied contours of this problematization, which appeared through the labour upon one's affect and bodily dispositions that this refusal of the hijab, or the act of unveiling, implies.
... For the evolution of hijab in Islamic legal tradition, seeMir-Hosseini (2007, 2011. 32 For a critical discussion of these two assumptions, see(Abou El Fadl, 2001, pg.239-247). ...
This author offers a feminist and rights-based critique of zina laws in Muslim legal tradition, which define any sexual relations outside legal marriage as a crime. In the early 20th century, zina laws, which were rarely applied in practice, also became legally obsolete in almost all Muslim countries and communities; but with the resurgence of Islam as a political and spiritual force later in the 20th century, in several states and communities zina laws were selectively revived, codified and grafted onto the criminal justice system, and applied through the machinery of the modern state. The author reviews current campaigns to decriminalise consensual sex, and argues that zina laws must also be addressed from within the Islamic legal tradition. Exploring the intersections between religion, culture and law that legitimate violence in the regulation of sexuality, the author proposes a framework that can bring Islamic and human rights principles together.
In contemporary Iran, the expansion of surveillance technologies has enabled the state to exercise precise and systematic control over its citizens, reinforcing a centralized and authoritarian governance model. In response to the women's resistance against compulsory hijab, the Iranian government has introduced and enforced stringent legal measures that not only monitor women's dress across various social domains but also curtail their broader social freedoms. This study critically examines the surveillance strategies embedded in policies such as the Chastity and Hijab Bill and the deployment of hijab enforcers in public spaces, analyzing them through the lens of Foucault's panopticism. Findings from this case study suggest that the extensive monitoring and enforcement of hijab regulations—whether by morality police or state-sanctioned enforcers—undermine women's sense of identity and self-worth, leading to a pervasive culture of self-discipline. These coercive measures, when examined in the broader socio-political framework, appear to function as part of a comprehensive disciplinary apparatus designed to reinforce gendered power hierarchies through systemic domination. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the intricate mechanisms of surveillance and control in Iran and their far-reaching implications for women's rights and individual autonomy.
Anthropological texts dealing with cultures of the Middle East often reflect on the role of women in Muslim societies. One of the main points of discussion when it comes to Muslim women is undoubtedly their public appearance, whereupon these women are most often seen veiled. Indeed, a veil, or hijab, has become one of the primary symbols of a Muslim woman when in public. While the veil can take on different forms, it has also come to symbolise a range of different things. The main objective of this paper is the analysis of the main approaches to the phenomenon of female veiling in Islam. It draws on the concept of bargaining with patriarchy as outlined by Deniz Kandiyoti, while discussing the various positions on hijab as analysed by female anthropologists with a personal connection to the broader Middle Eastern region. The paper traces the origins of female veiling, its symbolism, and its forms in the 21st century. Special attention is paid to the case of Iran, whose legislation requires women to wear the veil in public at all times.
Religion is an omnipresent concern for the Iranian community residing in the Greater Toronto Area and York Region (GTA and YR). While the experience of Islamophobia appears to be a unidirectional attitude from the host onto the diasporic community, this research indicates the complexities of Canada's Muslim experience. According to this research, the Iranian Diasporas present an ingroup Islamophobia by expressing anger and hostility toward Iranian Muslim community members. In an attempt to set communal boundaries by restructuring one's ethnic identity, the historical and environmental factors simultaneously influence social interaction between the Iranian Muslim community and other Iranian-Canadians. This paper examines the Iranian religious identity and its relationship with Iranian history, Western Islamophobia, and non-Islamiosity to examine the Iranian Muslims' experience in Canada.
This study aims to elaborate on the concept of Islamic teachings on the rights of non-Muslims in an Islamic country. This study uses the literature study method, which is a data collection method directed at searching for data and information through scientific articles and scientific books, both in scientific journals, scientific forum proceedings, and scientific research reports. The results of the study show that non-Muslims who live among Muslims (ahlu al-dzimmah) receive protection, have equal rights and obligations, and obtain an equal position with Muslims. Muslims, especially Muslim leaders, have an obligation to provide protection to non-Muslims. Islamic leaders have an obligation to provide legal instruments and legislation, which guarantee the basic rights of non-Muslims, and obtain equality before the law.
In recent years, the Muslim female headscarf has been in the spotlight of discourses related to east/west relations: the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers, the bombs in London and Paris and the various western ‘wars for democracy and civilization’ have intensified civilizational differences and located the veil as the symbol, the metaphor, of an intrinsic incompatibility between the east and the west. While in the ‘east’ the veil has been elevated as an identitarian Islamic symbol by emerging Islamist groups, in the west Muslim women’s veil has started to be understood as something endangering society (MacMaster & Lewis, 1998). Representing Muslim veiled women as threatening the peace of a society goes hand in hand with the idea that veiled women are inherently oppressed by a backward and patriarchal religion. In March 2016, for instance, the French minister for women’s rights, Ms. Laurence Rossignol, compared women who wear the veil to ‘Negroes who supported slavery’ (Allen, 2016). She criticized western fashion companies for selling items such as the burqini and new, fashionable and ‘modern’ hijabs. For Ms. Rossignol, a legal regulation over the practice of veiling was necessary to ‘save’ Muslim women from a backward anti-secular religion that oppressed them. Similarly, the British Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston declared that “[it] should be clear that the burka is a symbol of oppression and segregation,” while the Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson declared that “‘bin-bags’ prevent women from playing a full part in society” (Pearson, 2014). The idea that the veil is a threat to secular values and gender equality, expressed by politicians, columnists and journalists, contributes to the visual construction of the Muslim woman as oppressed and needing to be saved by tolerant and liberal western values. This notion has been strengthened by western mass media which have repeatedly portrayed veiling as the symbol of violent (Islamic) political/religious values and un-veiling as the symbol of women’s liberation. During the Iraqi war, for instance, western mass media widely reported how the American/European occupation of Iraq and its (weak) political institutions improved the life of Iraqi women by releasing them from the normative burden to veil imposed by religious/rebel groups in the country after the fall of the Saddam regime (Mclaughlin, 2017). Similarly, in 2017, when part of Syria was liberated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), western media showed repeated images of Syrian women removing and burning their veils (Pasha-Robinson, 2017) as the symbol of the liberation from Islamic State’s rules (IS) and violent occupation. While the symbolic juxtaposition of veiling and un-veiling echoes Said’s (1994) understanding of the western construction of the ‘other’ as backward, it also reveals the fundamental dichotomies through which the practice is constructed. In fact, most of the discourses related to the practice of veiling focus on ‘us’ v ‘them’, modernity v tradition, public v private, religion v secularism, veiling v un-veiling.
While text-based and cyberspace campaigns against compulsory veiling in Iran have received much attention, Iranian diasporic creative writers have also engaged in this resistance through their writings, but they have remained almost unacknowledged. This article argues that diasporic literary narratives have functioned as part of what has led to today’s online platforms and cyberactivism. The article approaches these literary narratives as forms of counterdiscourse, rearticulating alternative narratives about women’s movements against compulsory veiling. Produced in diaspora, these transnational feminist works raise questions of authenticity and legitimacy. However, these authors emerge as activists from their position abroad, pushing back against the limits placed by the state on women’s bodies; in posing these challenges, they contribute to dissent from the mainstream narrative and to a rearticulation of the movement even as their works are viewed as marginal.
This paper discusses the challenges of the political narratives and discourse of, what we would and some scholars have argued as, Islamic feminism in contemporary Iran. The paper explains briefly the social origins and accompanying intellectual and political developments that led to the emergence and shaped the political narratives in Iranian Islamic feminism. Next, it outlines and discusses the nature and characteristics of the Islamic feminist discourse. In doing so, the paper highlights and explains the central intellectual and ethical-political principles deliberated and advocated by several writers and thinkers within and related to this discourse and women’s discourse in general, including Ali Shariati, as well as Murtada Mutahhari whose views on women and gender inform mainstream perspectives on the status and role of women in Iranian society. The paper then examines the challenges confronted by the discourse of Islamic feminism and concludes by considering the implications of Islamic feminist narratives and discourse on contemporary Iranian thought and society.
This article is a spiritual autoethnography that discusses the necessity and possibility of finding names for personal religious or spiritual beliefs. It investigates the multiple nature of selfhood, crossing boundaries, and shifting identities by relating the life story of the author from being born a Muslim to being an atheist, and then to becoming interested in religious mysticism and being a devoted spiritual traveler. By means of autoethnographic techniques, the article illustrates how people are urged to find new names for what they are specifically when they perform religious rules of a faith in a different way. The article also discusses the consequences of re‐naming.
After the Islamic revolution in Iran, wearing hijab became mandatory for women in Iran by law based on the Islamic republic legal system in 1983. Many controversial debates have started since then about hijab. Background: Some studies mentioned that mandatory hijab excludes women from the public domain while others stated that policing hijab is necessary for Islamic society in order to make a safer society for women to participate in the public arena. So, such point of view assumes that women who are more religious and wear hijab could participate in the Islamic society after revolution easier than non-religious women who do not wear hijab. Objective: In this study, I want to examine the relationship between the level of religiosity of women and their employment status. Method: I used secondary data analysis in this study to examine this relationship. In order to conduct this study, I used the World Value Survey (WVS) 2005 dataset relate to Iran.
Women’s position, identity, and value in Islam have been affected by androcentric interpretations of the Qur’an and hadith throughout Islamic history. Women’s roles in society, as well as their position vis-à-vis Islamic sources and authority, have been shaped by these interpretations. In Shi’a Islam, due to the majority male clergy’s resistance, women have rarely reached the highest loci of Shi’i authority and jurisprudence. However, there have been women scholars who have transgressed these normative frameworks. Lady Amin, who was one of the most prominent Iranian theologians of the 19th and 20th centuries, is a notable example. Lady Amin had great knowledge of jurisprudence and gained the status of mujtahida at the age of forty. Her scholarly work addressed not only interpretations of the Qur’an and hadith, but also women’s issues and gender politics of her time. This study addresses women’s ijtihad in Shi’a Islam and investigates Lady Amin’s teachings on the topics of womanhood and motherhood. This study focuses on Lady Amin’s book of Islamic ethics, titled Ways of Happiness: Suggestions for Faithful Sisters, written as a Shi’i source of guidance with a specific focus on women and gender in Shi’a Islam.
Drawing on the narratives of Australian young Muslim women, this paper examines the way the subjectivities of religious feminine piety and secular and democratic liberalism are embodied and, therefore, continually produced through the practice of religion. It aims to understand women’s piety in relation to questions of self and agency. Liberal self-governance presents as a possible precursor to pious self-construction of religious subjectivities and agency in contrast to piety held as the other of liberal politics. Additionally, the paper unpacks the ethics of veiling and unveiling, suggesting that both bodily practices can be perceived as techniques of the self. Particularly, it challenges the understanding of unveiling as a sign of assimilation or an act of rejection to a practice largely perceived in the West as oppressive. Rather, it is a bodily act that can be interpreted as a self-technique to articulate a distinct subjectivity structured along ethical liberal lines. This subjectivity involves interrogating the mandatory nature of veiling within Orthodox Islam by practising Ijtihad.
This article shows how Iranian female poets in the post-revolutionary period, through their poetry, transgress several socio-cultural boundaries. The strategy of these women poets is the same: to become more visible, to raise their voice, to resist and to create a new identity not far off from their self. The article shows how the Iranian women poets in question attempt to promote ethical relations between human subjects through using their feminine writing. Their poems highly criticise an Iranian historical tradition that does not sufficiently recognise the presence of two different subjects—masculine and feminine— and which is not concerned enough with the ethics of relations between subjects. These poems can be analysed in terms of an Irigarayian framework that argues for a woman’s ability to establish herself as an independent subject. The Iranian authors/poets started to reform and rethink gender, and their poetry opens doors to Bakhtinian dialogism and eventually Iranian feminism. The article argues, using Irigaray, that it is essential for Iranian women to create a “house of language”, a place in which they can practice living and articulating, so that they can achieve self-enunciation.
Proper hejab observance has long been an important issue to political-religious conservatives in Iran who, in recent years, have relied on metaphorical language to persuade Iranian women to dress modestly in public. The present paper, based on Kövecses’s (2015) account of metaphor in context, explores the role of contextual factors involved in the formation of hejab linguistic metaphors used in 56 pro-hejab billboards and posters. Data analysis indicates that the moral and social status of women are depicted as being determined by, or correlated with, their degree of veiling. On that basis, properly covered up women are shown to be the recipients of very positive metaphorical conceptualizations (as pearls , flowers , and angels ), whereas immodestly dressed women are negatively pictured as being subject to sexual objectification (as unwrapped edibles ). Moreover, the hejab is a protective cover is shown to be the metaphor instantiated in many of the billboards and posters. The protective function of hejab is highlighted by conceptualizing corrupt men as flies and devils. Finally, the metaphorical patterns represent the contextual role of political and religious ideology, key cultural concepts, and show entrenched conventional conceptual metaphors and metonymies in the production of novel metaphors.
The debate on muslim women's veil (hijab) has always been central in contemporary feminist discussion, and therefore it embodies the core of the conflict between two antinomic views: the one in neo-orientalist and hegemonic neo-western discourse, and a certain majoritarian traditionalist Islamic discourse. For some, it embodies patriarchal oppression while for others it is the ultimate symbol of Islamic identity. Muslim women's body seems to incarnate a spot of tension between representations of modernity and antimodernity. This text intends to perform a double criticism and deconstruction from a decolonial perspective both of neo-orientalist feminist ideology and that "mirroring" view of traditionalist Islamic discourse which is opposed to any reformist approach.
This chapter traces the reception of banned films in Iran from the 1979 revolution to the latest developments in digital technology. It examines censorship in film exhibition before discussing the reception of banned foreign films and its impact on mainstream filmmaking practice. The findings are mainly based on interviews carried out in person and over the telephone with people who either currently live in Iran or did so previously. The essay argues that the viewing of banned films, whether Iranian or foreign, constitutes resistance to the Iranian regime, pushing back its strict sociocultural confines.
There are two forces that drive attitudes and behaviors in Iran. Strong Islamic, religious traditions that continue to dominate the culture exist in the presence of an emerging pattern of developmental idealism. This idealism, seen first in western societies, is associated with beliefs about and a striving toward such modern attributes as individualism, autonomy of children, nuclear families, equality between women and men, and planned family formation. It is thought that diffusion of this idealism occurs over time and cannot be fully controlled by traditional institutions and conservative governments. Because religious traditions in Iran have been most defined and restricted for females, we reasoned that an important and strong indicator of evidence of diffusion would be increases in female school enrollment. To explore these changes, we examined public record data for the period between 1976 and 2006. The data demonstrated clear advancements in education for women. The strong educational attainment of women during the period of study is parallel to findings in other areas, particularly in the realms of increase in age of marriage, control over reproductive behaviors including birth timing and family size, and are thus supportive of a strong trend toward developmental idealism [1⁻9]. This trend was facilitated by extensive expansion of access to educational institutions by the government.
Whether Islam is compatible with human rights in general, and with the Declaration of Human Rights in particular, has been both a Muslim issue and a concern of the international community. Muslim rulers, Western analysts and policymakers, and Muslim extremists as well as conservative Muslims, have often agreed for diverse reasons that Islam and human rights cannot co-exist. This book argues for the essential compatibility of Islam and human rights. It offers a critique of leading Western experts who ignore or marginalize the relationship of religion to human rights. At the same time, the book re-examines the inherited tradition that forms the basis of conservative Muslim objections, arguing that it is culturally conditioned and therefore open to development and change. Finally, and most importantly, the book delineates a fresh contemporary Muslim position that argues for a correspondence between Islam and secular concepts of human rights, grounded in sacred sources as well as Islamic history and thought.
While globalization unifies the world, divisions re-emerge within it in the form of a spectacular separation between Islam and the West. How can it be that Huntington’s contested idea of a clash of civilizations became such a powerful political myth through which so many people look at the world?
The practice of Islamic veiling has over the last ten years emerged into a popular site of investigation. Different researchers have focused on the various significations of this bodily practice, both in its gendered dimensions, its identity components, its empowering potentials, as a satorial practice or as part of a broader economy of bodily practices which shape pious dispositions in accordance with the Islamic tradition. Lesser, however, has this been the case for the practice of not veiling or unveiling. If and when attention is accorded to the latter, it is often grasped as a product of integration or an effect secular governmentality, but only rarely as a bodily practice. Drawing on narratives of second generation secular and religious Maghrebi Muslims in Belgium, this paper pursues this second perspective by examining to which extent not-veiling can be understood as a technique of the self (Foucault) that is functional to shaping a liberal (Musilm) subject. While a first part of this article will unpack the ethical substance of such discursive interrogations and point to the ways in which they are intertwined with the enactment of a liberal self, the second part will examine the embodied contours of this problematization, which appeared through the labour upon one's affect and bodily dispositions that this refusal of the hijab, or the act of unveiling, implies.
The struggle over women's rights has been one of the main battlegrounds between the forces of modernity and tradition in Iranian politics and society. With the emergence of a Reformist movement in 1997 this struggle entered a new phase in the Islamic Republic. It became part of the part of a broader conflict over two differing notions of Islam. One is an absolutist and legalistic Islam, premised on the notion of duty, tolerating no dissent and making little concession to popular will and contemporary realities. The other is a pluralistic and tolerant Islam that promotes democratic values and human rights—including women's rights.