THE DEBATE OF TURKISH THEOLOGIANS ON FEMINISM AND THE RENEWAL OF ISLAM

Abstract

Intellectual debates about the status of women in Islam have been actively developing since the end of the 19th century, coinciding with the emergence of the first wave of feminism. However, the peak of the debate occurred in the 90s of the 20th century, when researchers from Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, as well as representatives of the Muslim diaspora in the West, such as Amina Wadud, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Asma Barlas, etc., were prominent figures defenders of Islamic feminism. Despite the fact that Islamic feminism is one of the important trends of modern world Islamic thought, this phenomenon is little known in the post-Soviet space. Modern theologians of Turkey who support Islamic feminism are published exclusively in Turkish. In this article, the author presents to the Russian-speaking reader the modern intellectual debates of the Turkish theologians Hidayet Tuksal and Ihsan Eliachik regarding anti-capitalist Islam, the status of women in Islam and the attitude to hadith. The materials for the article were collected in 2021 during several personal interviews of the author with Hidayet Tuksal and in 2019 with Ihsan Eliachik, as well as by processing speeches, video lectures, books, articles, dissertations of these theologians. Traditionally minded theologians criticize representatives of Islamic feminism for combining the incongruous, since, according to them, Western-style feminism can have nothing to do with Islam. The debate of Islamic feminism in Turkey originates from the criticism of hadith, the Quran is interpreted from the standpoint of modern human rights and the principles of democracy. According to modern interpretations, it is not necessary for a Muslim woman to cover her head with a headscarf during prayer. If, for example, in traditional Islam, a woman's testimony in court was not equal to a man's, then Islamic feminism equalizes a woman and a man in this matter. Also, the right given to women to conduct Friday prayers in a mosque as an imam, as well as, according to this interpretation of the Quran, that polygamy is not allowed in Islam, has become an actual discussed interpretation.