Abstract
This research focuses on the ‘Muslim Sisters Section’ (‘Qism El-ʾAkhawat El-Muslimat’), of the ‘Society of Muslim Brothers’ (‘Jamaʿat El-ʾIkhwan El-Muslimin’) in Egypt, that established in 1933 by Hassan El-Banna. Historiographical review of researches that focuses on Political Islam exposes that despite the wealth of literature on the Muslim Brothers, women’s agency in the movement is one of the least explored dimensions of the movement, even though they played a pivotal role in its survival at stages when the movement was subject to extreme repression.
My research aims to fill this gap and therefore focuses on analyzing several vital issues: men’s guardianship over women (Qawamat El-Rijal ʿala El-Nisa), veiling, gender separation in the public sphere (Manaʿ El-ʾIkhtilat), education for women, polygamy, inheritance, violence against women, the complexity between a woman’s family and social duties and the status and role of the Muslim Sisters within the Muslim Brotherhood.
This study is based on reading and analyzing a wide variety of sources, primarily the interpretation of the Quran (Qurʾanic Tafsir) and diaries of autobiographical memories, written by Muslim Sisters like Zaynab El-Ghazali (1919-2005), ʾAmal El-ʿAshmawy (1916-1995), Fatma ʿAbd El-Hady (1917-2005), Labiba ʾAhmed (1870-1955), Hamida Qutb (1937-2012) and ʾIntisar ʿAbd El-Munʿem (1965).
This research aims to shed light on these figures and expand the narrow understanding of feminism that has previously precluded the existence of Islamist activists. Saba Mahmood (Mahmood), in her book, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and The Feminist Subject, argues that Islamist Women’s narrative should be analyzed in terms of the particular field of arguments it has made available to Muslim women and the possibilities for action these arguments have opened and foreclosed for them (Mahmood, 2012: 183). This study attempts to apply Mahmood’s method to understand the doctrinal and religious worldviews that defined Muslim Sisters and expose and contextualize their rhetoric, motivations, and actions. I argue that the precise examination of texts written by Muslim Sisters reveals their independent and unique voice and trace how they and the Muslim Brothers sought to influence and react to gender matters arising within the movement and in the broader socio-political context of Egypt.
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