Femin Ijtihad
A Legal & Literary Academic Initiative on Gender in Islam:
A Project For Afghanistan
Each individual contribution towards the research will go into the manual that we are compiling - so your contribution is a direct contribution and we will acknowledge you for that. You can research on University grounds during research meetings at the University of Warwick (UK), New York University (NYU) or the National University of Singapore (NUS). Alternatively, you can research from home.
Eligibility & Qualifications
- Must be enrolled onto an appropriate degree programme (undergraduate or postgraduate, the latter preferred)
- Must be competent in the language of the researched articles (primarily English)
What do you have to do?
1. Read articles (as many as you choose) concerning:
- Gender-neutral interpretations in Islamic law and legal traditions in the topics mentioned above (relating to women’s issues)
- The explanations scholars have offered regarding why that interpretation is ‘correct’ or should be followed.
- Traditions of the Prophet: the honourable manner in which he treated his wives and addressed his female companions
- Stories/folktales of key female figures in Islamic history
- Law reforms in Muslim jurisdictions on the topics mentioned above that Afghanistan can emulate.
2. Write an abstract for each article that you read.
3. Select extracts (just copy and paste) which you think are important and therefore should be included into the manual.
4. Reference the article
5. Submit it!
Bonus
FI is running a research phase between NOW and First Week of March (3 months and a week) If a researcher reads up to 10 articles between this period (less than one article per week!), you will receive a certificate from FI. If a researcher reads 18 articles in that same period, the researcher will receive a reference from FI. You can choose as many articles to read.
How do you get started?
1. Email feminijtihad.research@googlemail.com stating your interest. FI's Research Coordinator will send you three documents that will give you all the instructions you need to begin. These documents will:
a) Show you how an FI abstract should be written.
b) Show you how to reference the article
c) Tell you what kind of extracts from the article will be useful.
d) You will submit your work in the Word.doc form provided (abstract, reference & extracts)
What is the end product?
Imagine a textbook with extracts of essays on Gender in Islamic Law and law reform. This textbook (manual) will be divided into chapters like Polygamy, Marital Rape, Domestic Violence etc....
Why are we doing this?
We provide Afghan organisations with examples intellectual discussions done by scholars on women's rights in Islamic law. We select certain extracts so that they do not have to read the entire article. And during the editing process, we subsitute difficult words for easy words and shorten sentences to make it as user friendly as possible.
As a research initiative, it is important that we yield a high standard of academic work and trust that as competent researchers you will produce this.