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Margot Badran
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 Professor,
Department of Religon
Northwestern University, United States
Research: Islamic Feminism in Africa, a Nigerian Case:
Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
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Margot Badran, a historian of the Middle East and Islamic
societies and specialist in gender studies, is a Senior
Fellow at the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding,
Georgetown University. She is currently Edith Kreeger Wolf
Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Religion
and Preceptor at the Institute for the Study of Islamic
Thought at Northwestern University. She has a diploma in
Arabic and Islamic religious studies at Al Azhar University
in Cairo in addition to M.A. in Middle East Studies from
Harvard University and a D. Phil. in Middle East history
from Oxford University. She calls both the United States
and Egypt home. She is author of Feminists, Islam and Nation:
Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt, co-editor of Opening
the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing (appearing
in a new expanded edition in April 2004), and translator,
editor and introducer of Harem Years: the Memoirs of an
Egyptian Feminist, Huda Shaarawi. Her writings on secular
and Islamic feminisms have been translated into Arabic and
several other languages. She is now finalizing a book on
comparative Islamic feminisms. She also writes on feminism
and gender for Al Ahram Weekly in Cairo.
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Islamic Feminism in Africa, a Nigerian Case: Gender Equality
and the Empowerment
of Women
My research proposal concerned with Islamic feminism in
Africa takes a specific look at the case of Amina Lawal
who was accused of zina (sexual activity outside the parameters
of marriage, according to Islam) and threatened with death
by stoning if found guilty. Amina Lawal was acquitted in
a shar`iah (Islamic law) court through Islamic argumentation.
Lawal was strongly supported by women from Baobab for Human
Rights and other feminist activists who used religious discourse
in promoting their cause. This can be seen as a triumph
for Islamic feminism (a discourse grounded in Islamic religious
sources, especially the Qur'an and related modes of activism)
whether or not explicitly labeled as such. My research project
centers around collecting narratives about the case and
related issues from women belonging to three major Nigerian
NGOs: Baobab for Women's Human Rights, Women of Nigeria
(WIN) and the Federation of Muslim Women Associates of Nigeria
(FOMWAN). I shall also interview women and men from a "second
tier," including legal specialists, scholars (religious
and secular), public intellectuals, media professionals,
and ordinary people. I am interested in ways the activism
around the Lawal case forms an important chapter in the
story of Islamic feminism in Nigeria, Africa-wide, and globally.
I argue that the women's narratives themselves perform a
feminist function and in so doing further the enjoyment
of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The narratives
as "insider stories" can also help concerned women
as "outsiders" help meet the challenge of supporting
Muslim women as part of the world's women. The narratives
of the "second tier" further illuminate the way
the case was perceived in Nigeria and its internal legacy.
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