How religious extremism compromises women’s security, agency and mental health: Conversation with Sarah Eltantawi

abstract

Extremist forms of thinking regulate and restrict in particular, women’s agency in many parts of the world compromising women’s ability to make personal decisions or even informed choices. As increasingly documented, different lived experiences of Muslims dismisses the often presumed universal understanding of the theological framework undergirding Islamic praxis. This interview with Sarah Eltantawi, an intellectual historian of contemporary Islam who has focused on political Islam and Islamic law in Nigeria and Egypt, reviews the practical implications of the operations of Islamic law in contemporary societies. In the interview Eltantawi responds to concerns for women's security and the connections between peace and violence in the domestic environment as it links with the broader political and socio-economic context. There is increasing recognition of the ways in which Muslim women negotiate their understanding of the pietistic requirements to observe God’s will with contemporary ideas of agency in what is habitually touted as an hierarchical domain. This interview offers an Islamic feminist perspective on the intersections of women's security and pietistic norms, particularly in Nigeria and Egypt. Furthermore, it explores the intersections of religio-cultural and gender-based concerns for mental health as depression gradually becomes a leading illness globally. In this final element the interview suggests new avenues for feminist analysis of the intersections of personal security, reproductive health and depression.

keywords:

• agency
• Islam
• peace
• religious extremism
• security
• women

Notes

1. Referring to her forthcoming book Sharia on Trial: Stoning and the Islamic Revolution in Northern Nigeria (University of California, 2017).

2. Referring to Master’s Dissertation titled ‘Negotiating between heath-based contraceptive concerns and piety: The experiences of Muslim wives in the Greater Durban Area’.

3. There is no specific cause for depression and a higher incidence occurs amongst women and in general people with severe life stresses (Beers, Porter, Jones, Kaplan and Berkwits, 2006).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mariam B. Khan

MARIAM B. KHAN is in private practice as a Doctor of Natural Medicine specialising in Unani-Tibb. She has a BSc in Complementary Health Sciences (Summa cum Laude) from University of the Western Cape (UWC) and a Bachelor of Complementary Medicine in the field of Unani-Tibb (Summa cum Laude) (UWC). She graduated in April 2016 with a Master of Arts (Gender and Religion) (University of KwaZulu-Natal). She will follow through with a PhD exploring the intersections of gender, religion and health. Khan’s special interests are integrative medicine, ethics in healthcare and sexual and reproductive health and rights.