Women and political participation : a partial translation of ‘Abd al-Ḥalīm Muhammad Abū Shaqqah’s Taḥrīr al-Mar’ah fī ‘Aṣr al-Risālah (The liberation of women in the prophetic period), with a contextual introduction to the author and his work

Abstract

This thesis is a translation of a chapter that examines the role of Muslim women in politics during the early Islamic period and their engagement with religious and political discourses. This subject raises a combination of provocative challenges for Islamic discourse as Muslim women have had a complex relationship with their religious tradition dating back to the very inception of Islam. Despite Qur’ānic injunctions and Prophetic affirmations of the egalitarian status of Muslim women, social inequality and injustice directed at women remains a persistent problem in Muslim society. In the translated text Abū Shaqqah goes about re-invoking the normative tradition in order to affirm the role of Muslim women in politics. Furthermore the translation is prefaced by a critical introduction outlining the contours of the 20th century landscape, which attempts to describe the struggle of Muslim women in Abū Shaqqah’s time.