If justice is an intrinsic value in Islam, why have women been treated as second-class citizens in Islamic legal tradition? Today, the idea of gender equality, inherent to contemporary conceptions of justice, presents a challenge to established, patriarchal interpretations of Shari‘a. In thought-provoking discussions with six influential Muslim intellectuals – Abdullahi An-Na’im, Amina Wadud, Asma Lamrabet, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Mohsen Kadivar and Sedigheh Vasmaghi – Ziba Mir-Hosseini explores how egalitarian gender laws might be constructed from within the Islamic legal framework.

In today's world all eyes are on Iran, which has grappled with an experiment that has had a massive global impact. For some, the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 was the triumph of a modern, political Islam, heralding Muslim justice and economic prosperity. Others, including many of the original revolutionaries, saw religious fanatics attempting to roll back time by creating a despotic theocracy. Either way, the Iranian Revolution changed the Muslim world. It not only inspired the Muslim masses but also reinvigorated intellectual debates on the nature and possibilities of an Islamic state. The new 'Islamic Republic of Iran' combined not just religion and the state, but theocracy and democracy. Yet the revolution's heirs were soon engaged in a protracted struggle over its legacy. Dissident thinkers, from within an Islamic framework, sought a rights-based political order that could accept dissent, tolerance, pluralism, women's rights and civil liberties. Their ideas led directly to the presidency of Mohammad Khatami and, despite their political failure, they did leave a permanent legacy by demystifying Iranian religious politics, and condemning the use of the Shariah to justify autocratic rule. This book tells the story of the reformist movement through the world of Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari. An active supporter of the revolution who became one of the most outspoken critics of theocracy, Eshkevari developed ideas of 'Islamic democratic government', which have attracted considerable attention in Iran and elsewhere. In presenting a selection of Eshkevari's writings, this book reveals the intellectual and political trajectory of a Muslim thinker and his attempts to reconcile Islam with reform and democracy. As such it makes a highly original contribution to our understanding of the difficult social and political issues confronting the Islamic world today.

Mona Samadi examines the sources of gender differences within the Islamic tradition, with particular focus on guardianship, and describes the opportunities and challenges for advancing the legal status of women.

Award-winning historian Theodore Friend recently set out alone across Asia and the Middle East on a quest to understand firsthand the life situations of women in Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. Woman, Man, and God in Modern Islam recounts Friend s remarkable journey and relates hundreds of encounters and conversations with people he met along the way. Commingling a deep respect for Islam and his faith in the potential of women to change their worlds, Friend presents an open, exploratory outsider s perspective on women in five very different Islamic cultures timely fare for all who wish to broaden their world horizons.

With the resurgence of Islam as a social and political force, debates over family law reveal the struggle between the forces of traditionalism and modernism. The disparate tendencies within so-called Islamic fundamentalism have in commmon the desire to re-institute Shari'a law, which they regard as the last bastion of the Islamic ideal of social relations. Yet very little is known of the ways in which the Shari'a actually operates in today's Muslim societies. Mir-Hosseini focuses on the dynamics of marriage and its breakdown, as well as the way in which litigants manipulate the law in order to resolve marital disputes and child custody cases. Taking an inter-disciplinaryand approach which straddles law, anthropology, sociology and women's studies, Mir-Hosseini shows how women may turn even the most patriarchal elements of Islamic law to their advantage and achieve their personal marital aims.