Turning the Tables: Perspectives on the Construction of “Muslim Manhood”

Abstract

This article analyzes the alternative discursive strategy undertaken by Muslim women reformists, in different contexts and for different purposes, which can be described as turning the tables on Muslim men. The process involves a reversal of roles, in which women take on the religious responsibility of holding men accountable to certain Islamic ideals or ethics, judging and correcting their conduct, and demanding behavioral change. Hence, in effect, they are engaged in producing a new discourse on men in Islam, their duties and morals, as well as re-defining male identity according to Islamic ethical standards and from the perspective of Muslim women. The article also analyzes how male writers themselves conceive manhood and the characteristics of “men” in Islam. I examine three cases, arguing their correspondence to three distinctive perspectives on manhood in Islamic discourses: (a) medieval representations of the male character that concentrate on the relational dimension vis-à-vis women in the family; (b) the modernist conception of masculinity that emphasizes inherent qualities based on biological essentialism; (c) women reformists, from three different time periods, who have attempted a reconstruction of manhood and a re-definition of men as “domestic” beings by measuring them against Qurʾanic ideals and the model of the prophets.