Asma Lamrabet
Euro-Arab Foundation of the University of Granada
Sunday February 21ˢᵗ, 2021
Click here to watch the lecture on Youtube (in French with Arabic subtitles)…
Like many Muslim women working in intellectual and activist networks (Karamah in the United States, or Musawah in Malaysia), Mrs. Asma Lamrabet tries to go beyond the misogynistic, patriarchal and legalist approach that has prevailed in Islam, especially through jurisprudence (fiqh), by highlighting an ethical and spiritual approach. Rather than relying on a few verses (on inheritance, testimony, or polygamy) and drawing from them general legal principles for all that concerns “the Muslim woman”, the ethical-reformist reading aims at a holistic (šumūlī) reading of the Qurʾān, which takes into consideration the objectives of the Law (maqāṣid al-šarīʿa). Those are, among others, the common good (al-maṣlaḥa al-ʿāmma), the removal of constraint (rafʿ al-ḥaraǧ), the establishment of justice (iqāmat al-ʿadl). The status of women must be understood in the light of general Qurʾānic values such as justice (al-ʿadāla), equity (al-qisṭ), compassion (al-raḥma), piety (al-taqwā), love (al-maḥabba), wisdom (al-ḥikma), collaboration in righteousness and piety (al-taʿāwun ʿalā al-birr wa-l-taqwā), protection of the vulnerable (ḥimāyat al-mustaḍʿafīn fī al-arḍ), and not in the light of five or six verses interpreted too quickly and used as intangible legal principles.
The hope for renovation that this ethical reading brings is at the service of the liberation of all —especially the weakest— and not just of women, who have been made completely invisible in the Muslim tradition.