FEMININE SPIRITUALITY: THE LOST DIMENSION IN THE WESTERN PERCEPTION OF ISLAM
FEMININE SPIRITUALITY: THE LOST DIMENSION IN THE WESTERN PERCEPTION OF ISLAM

Summary/Abstract: [...] Among all the stereotypes that Westerners hold dear about Islam, the most deeply rooted is probably the idea that women are mistreated and oppressed. Since the nineteenth century, one of the most popular ways to criticize religion in general is to speak of an elite that makes use of religious beliefs to rule the masses. Karl Marx is one of best known of the thinkers who helped popularize this sort of view. So-called enlightened public opinion in the West looks upon all religion in this way. More recently, many feminist scholars have made this view the backbone of their own perspective. But now the ruling elite are men, and the oppressed masses are women. If we look back into the Western perception of Islam in the nineteenth century, we can see that the idea that Islam is a religion that is ruled by an oppressive male elite was extremely popular. Leila Ahmed has written a book showing that there was no doubt in the minds of anyone in the West that Islam mistreated women (Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate) [...]

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