I think it is, but it also isn’t? The interactions between the Islamic world and Christian is pretty complex, long-standing, and hard to untangle with regards to where ideologies evolve from? They are sometimes informing each other, but not always. Lots of what we’d call Islamists were influenced not just by an attempt to “purify” society of immoral behavior along what they saw as Islamical lines, but of “western” behavior, too (such as Hassan Al-Banna, who founded the brotherhood). Same with figures like Jalal al-e-Ahmad, who coined the term “westtoxification”… But then you have the founder of the religious revival associated with the house of Saud, the Salafi movement, which really was not informed by the same kind of imperial relationships from without, but by the relationship with Shia and Sufi islam, which is much more mystical and often has holy sites that Salafists associate with the worshiping of idols (such as the graves of revered figures). So there is certainly home grown misogyny in Muslim majority countries, but that’s often cultural inscribed, not necessarily Islamically ordained… The key thing to remember is that from our modern perspective, early Islam looked like it was misogynistic in the extreme, Muhammad brought about deep reforms in Arab society that benefited women. Now a days, we’d understand that a woman only getting a small portion of an inheritance from the passing of a father is discriminatory, but at the time, prior to Islam, women got literally nothing. They had no rights, so Islam actually inscribed basic rights for women in the Arab world which they had not had in pre-Islamic society.
It’s been a while since I’ve read this, but I seem to remember some discussion in it on gender relations?
There is about Persian society, but there is some overlap with the Arab world:
And this is a good one on specifically Lebanon and the political movement associated with Hezbollah:
I’m sure I can think of some more, but I’ll have to dig into my old syllabi to find some good books.
Makes sense, though it differs a lot from what initially surprised me, the idea that “the Taliban [are only] claiming to be going along with sharia, but really embracing western modes of thinking more than anything else.” Now you seem to be saying that much of their oppression of women is not an embrace of western modes of thinking, but rather a reaction to/against them – perhaps, for one thing, a rejection of women’s embrace of seemingly western behavior.
Great point and good to know. I see now that while we in the “west” who object to Christian fundamentalists’ suppression of women (and of much else) can discern pretty easily that it’s not just old-timey, traditional Christianity they’re trying to enforce – that it’s a selective and contemporarily informed version – we should also realize that oppressive extremists who claim to be traditionally “Islamic” while oppressing and killing are basically doing the same damn selective and contemporarily informed thing.
The Esoterica Youtube channel’s presenter’s teacher, a tenured professor on Religious Studies, cancelled a class on “Abortions and Religions” on November 6, a class with three students in it, and told them why in a private email.
And was suspended for it. Looks a lot like the beginning of a purge.
There’s also some of the Jewish fundamentalist thinking in there, all of the Christian “women as property” stuff comes from the old testament, and you only need to look at some of the more extreme parts of the jewish religion to see hair coverings (even full body covering, as the woman’s body was property of the husband), women not being allowed out without a male companion, separate areas for men and women, and so forth, are well-established traditions.
To be fair, it’s very tough to find a modern society that doesn’t have deep wells of misogyny. It’s not just of problem of the children of Abraham. There’s a reason why Engel’s argued that men oppressing women was the first form of oppression in human societies. Religion is just one tool among many that is employed to oppress people.
SMU is trying to break its ties to the United Methodist Church, primarily because its concerned that the UMC may return to discriminating against LGBTQ+ people. The UMC has sued to prevent it. Good for SMU. I’m not sure, legally, if they’re going to win this, but I hope they do.
ETA: More info
ETA Pt. 2: At first glance, I think the UMC has the stronger legal argument, unfortunately. However, there are ways to break “permanent” clauses in charters and contracts. Rice University’s original charter had a provision that it was only allowed to educate white students. The university’s own regents sued in the 1960s to overturn that provision, and won because the court said the 14th Amendment prevented it from enforcing the whites only clause. Now, that same argument won’t work with SMU, obviously, but there are ways to get out of clauses that purport to be permanent.
Not-unserious question: can a university pull a corporate and just dissolve and sell all its assets to a successor organization that is nominally independent but which it created, then continue on like nothing happened but with complete independence under a different brand? (I assume the regents would need to be on board with this, etc…)
This will yank funds from already underfunded public schools and funnel it to private schools, the vast majority of which are church affiliated. So it’s a double insult: defunding public school AND state funding of religious institutions.
