Introduction

Religion is studied as an important dimension of complex social relations and of subject formation, together with gender and sexuality. Hence, with the growth of global religious fundamentalisms, rethinking religion has become a necessary path for feminist criticism within both majority- and minority-Muslim countries. Islamic feminists work from a faith-based position and from a strategic or scholarly position that often seeks to contextualise what have been considered “Islamic gender norms” to suggest the historical contingency and cultural construction of these norms. This is a discourse on women and gender which elucidates the message of gender equality and social justice as located within an egalitarian reading of Islam. For her all interpretations are relative, including the ones that have been accepted as authoritative within the four madhahib (legal schools). This chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.