MUSLIM WOMEN AND THE ISLAMIC STATE BETWEEN POLITICAL ACTIVISM AND THE ISLAMIC LAW: AN ANALYSIS OF THE JULBAB ALMAR'AH AL-MUSLIMAH FI AL-KITAB WA AL-SUNNAH OF SHAYKH AL-ALBAN

Abstract

This study brings into the open the views of Muslim women on the socio-political conditions of women in line with the need to capture the 'feelings, experiences and perspectives of Muslim women who hold tenaciously to the Islamic creed and its tenets but who have usually been excluded from the feminist discourse about Muslim women. It examines the socio-political conditions of women within Muslim societies empiri­cally and shows to what extent Anne Sofie Roald has rightly pointed out that the question of Muslim women has hardly ever been treated as a religious question. It has instead, according to her, been usually perceived in socio-political terms.2 The root causes of the appalling conditions of Muslim women in contemporary societies has been traced to the gender­ biased State implementation of the shari'ah laws. These appalling condi­tions of Muslim women according to Shaykh Muhammad Nasir al-Din al­ Albani can be traced to the emergence of religious extremism