ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses what Abu-Lughod has called the most investigated of the ‘zones of theorizing’: the harem. The study of gender in Islam is the field of studies that has suffered the highest level of essentialization. The chapter follows the development of the study of gender in Islam, from the silence of the first main studies on Islam to the first feminist viewpoints. It argues that an overemphasis on the debate of women’s dress code, and in particular the so-called veil, or þijab, has prevented a real study of gender, which in the case of studies concerning Muslims, became synonymous with a study of femininity. Though, from a critical analysis of some relevant examples of the available research on gender and Islam, one can observe that for a contemporary anthropological approach it is fundamental to observe the dynamics of gender.
