Laying Devil’s Advocate: Islamic Feminism and the Temptations of Freedom

Fahmi Jadaan is one of the Palestinian thinkers and Jordanian academics who pays special attention to the field of Arab civilization and the contemporary Arab world and has published numerous works in this field. In the book Khārij al-Sarb: Baḥth fi al-Nisvīyah al-Islāmiyyah al-Rāfiḍah va Aghrāt al-Ḥurīyyah, he reports and analyzes Islamic feminism in the contemporary world. In this book, in six chapters, he tries to give a comprehensive picture of the various currents that are included under the category of Islamic feminism and count their differences and evaluate their achievements. In this book, he first talks about the origin of Islamic feminism and considers contemporary Iran and "Zanan" magazine as one of its origins. Then, it deals with the Quranic interpretive views of feminists such as Amina Wadud, Leila Ahmed and Fatemeh Al-Marnesi and places them in a group that, while adhering to the validity of the Holy Qur'an, try to give different interpretations of the verses regarding the Islamic rulings of women. Then Jadaan gives a report from the point of view of four feminists who, although they have been trained in Islamic culture, are not aligned with Islam. In the final chapter, he analyzes and criticizes some of these feminists and while suggesting paying attention to this phenomenon, and accepting some of their claims, he proposes to deal with it in an appropriate way. In this article, after reviewing the book, I have tried to recount some methodological and content considerations about this book and evaluate it.