Islamic Law Women and Gender

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course addresses the history of Islamic law with a focus on the issues of women and gender. We will study the history of Islamic law and gender through the lenses of different scholarly approaches and foci, including law as exegesis, law as a social construct, law as a source of identity, law as contending discourses, and law as a site of activism. Throughout the course, we will identify the various (and varying) legal doctrines as developed in works of Islamic jurisprudence as well as legal practices. In the process of discussing what Islamic law has to “say” about women and gender issues, we will be confronting a broad range of legal doctrines and far-flung judicial practices, all of which can claim to come under the mantle of the Islamic tradition.