Islam and gender in Europe: Subjectivities, politics and piety

Abstract

'Is Islam reconcilable with feminism?' asks Haideh Moghissi (1999), echoing a concern that is currently dramatized in numerous ways across and beyond Europe. The growing presence and visibility of Muslims in European liberal democracies and the post-9/11 'war on terror' context has given urgency to debates on the contradictions, struggles but also reconciliations between feminism and Muslim religious practices and forms of religious life. This special issue does not seek to answer the question whether Islam is reconcilable with feminism, but rather its aim is to unpack the theoretical, analytical and ethnographic interface of the complex and internally heterogeneous traditions that we identify as 'feminist' and 'Islamic ' .