2 Islamic Feminist Perspectives on Sexuality
An Analysis of Muslim Sex Educators and Advocates
Anna Lambert
Introduction
Sexuality is a complicated issue. Sex is a vast part of social and personal life and is interconnected with many other ideological aspects, such as religion, culture, self-expression, duty, and agency. Narratives around sex often direct people towards overt, liberatory sexual practices or passive sexual oppression as normative or non-normative without regard for the breadth of sexual diversity present in the experience of different groups. This is particularly true regarding how Muslims are perceived in the West, as they are commonly held to demeaning stereotypes regarding sexuality and relationships—they are seen as backward, oppressed, conservative, and non-sexual (Lara Deeb, 2009; Mark Hay, 2020). Western feminists are not excluded from holding these beliefs. Within the Muslim community, there is very real shame and stigma concerning sex, despite the rich accounts of sexual practice present in Islamic history (Hay, 2020).
Thinking transnationally, ideas around Muslims and sexuality are further complicated within the American context. Here, Muslim people, like other religious groups, take guidance from texts and religious leaders whose voices often contrast with the hyper-individualistic, progressive, Westernized cultural and societal norms. This is especially true for sexuality, a topic rife with baggage around the notions of cultural and religious thinking. Islamic feminist scholar Kecia Ali posits a “crisis of sexual morality” for contemporary Muslims, in that classic models of sexual ethics no longer fully or easily apply in several areas (2013, p. 72). The failure of traditional sexual ethics to map onto the complications of modern, American life lead many young Muslims to be caught between feelings of pressure and guilt, borne out of an inability to completely fulfill either directive of Islamic sexual ethics or American sexual norms. Both forms of sexual expression are deeply influenced by larger value frameworks composed within cultural, historical contexts, and the source of much controversy within each culture.
Examining these issues of Islamic and American norms for Muslim people are Islamic feminists. The works of Islamic feminists center the voices of Muslim women by using a gender analysis, which creates a body of feminist work that is aligned with and built from the principles of Islam (amina wadud, 2021). Using such a gender analysis allows feminist scholars to examine traditionally patriarchal interpretations and place them in their historical context, thus being critical of such readings as universal prescriptions for human and spiritual living.
To combat the harm of reductionist beliefs held towards Muslims, Islamic feminists call for discussion and consideration between Muslim communities and outsiders like Western feminists. Nima Naghibi argues that respectful debate and healthy dissent between diverse Muslim scholars will dispel the notion of Islam as homogenous, “backward, and in need of civilizing” (2007, p. 145). Similarly, Islamic feminist Saba Mahmood asks that outsiders show a willingness to intimately consider the “desires, motivations, commitments, and aspirations” of Muslim women before passing judgment on their way of life (Mahmood 225). This approach can be taken to understand how sexuality may be understood and experienced within Muslim American culture, especially for Western feminists, who come into the conversation with a seemingly entirely different set of beliefs around sexual practice, sexual expression, and women’s role within all of it.
Examining the work of Islamic feminists and scholarship on sexuality in Muslim literature and society reveals not only vast diversity in how sexual practices are viewed but also much similarity between the values of Islam and equity beliefs of Western feminists. Doing the work of sexual education and advocacy for Muslim communities are people and organizations like Angelica Lindsey-Ali and HEART. Lindsey-Ali, an American sex educator and content creator, centers Muslim women and girls in her work. HEART, an American non-profit organization, focuses on researching, educating, and advocating for Muslim communities in the name of sexual equality. Using the lens of Islamic feminism to analyze the work of Lindsey-Ali and HEART, their online and social media content may be viewed as a form of Islamic feminist praxis to serve their communities on the issue of sexuality by offering knowledge that is crafted in alignment with Islamic feminist principles and serves to uplift marginalized Muslim groups, such as women and girls.
Positionality Statement
Before examining the wealth of discourse present between Islamic feminists on the subjects of religion, womanhood, sexuality, and more, I must first acknowledge my position as a young, White American, atheist woman and college student. My experience taking Transnational Feminist Theories, the course for which this essay was written, has taught me to be critical of all of the factors that influence me and therefore inform my writing. I must be clear that although my intention is to faithfully represent the works of these authors and educators, my interpretations are subjective. My goal in approaching this essay was to learn to unpack and understand the diverse views present within Islamic feminism and Muslim communities on the subject of sexuality, of which I am a beginner student. I come to the table with my own values around sexuality and religion that sometimes align or differ from those presented here, but I strive to be thoughtful in how I write and not to present my perspective as the standard or norm, but simply as my own.
Theory and Discourse: Islamic Feminism and Sexuality
Islamic feminism can be understood as a project that expresses a position of faith and women’s rights movements in alignment with Qur’anic interpretations of gender as equal, equivocal, and reciprocal (Kynsilehto, 2008). The term Islamic when discussing feminism refers to the intentional centering of Islamic and Qur’anic principles in feminist theory and praxis, drawing upon the texts but also laws of country and society. This differs from the term Muslim, which may describe a feminist who identifies as Muslim but does not necessarily draw upon Islam in their work (Ayat Agah, personal communication, 2024). Islamic feminist scholar amina wadud (2021) discusses Islamic feminist exegesis of the Qur’an as a defining and preceding practice of Islamic feminism as a movement. She explains how the Qur’an can be understood separately from the patriarchal customs which affect Muslim women so deeply, as feminist exegesis reveals that the Qur’an is much more equitable in how it discusses gender than is understood in practice (wadud, 2021). wadud claims that an interpretation of this nature comes from women, as their lived realities inform how they read and understand the Qur’an (2021). Ultimately, she argues that it is patriarchal Hellenistic cultural systems that generate oppression of women in Islam, not the texts themselves (wadud, 2021). Hellenistic refers to the historical Greek influence on Muslim culture. wadud challenges the vertical placement of men above women in patriarchal readings of Qur’anic cosmology with the tawhidic paradigm, which asserts that the orientation is triadic, men and women horizontally connected with God above them (2021). This model establishes the unity of Allah and equal and reciprocal connection between men and women as presented in the Qur’an (wadud, 2021). In this example, wadud argues that faithful alignment with the principles and paradigms of Islam produces social action, mercy, compassion, equality, and reciprocity between men and women.
Moving beyond feminist interpretations of Islamic texts specifically, Islamic feminists also argue that the texts should be placed in historical and cultural contexts in order to understand them and recognize their prescriptive value. wadud claims that descriptive passages should be limited “to a particular past,” or be placed in context of the time, but prescriptive passages should be analyzed for their “universal benefit across time” (2021, p. 7). Similarly, Raja Rhouni (2008), another contributor to Islamic feminist discourse, argues against foundationalism in Islamic exegesis, which is the position that one’s interpretation is the absolute truth, and that the texts are universally prescriptive with no connection to their context and origin. Instead, Rhouni suggests that post-foundationalist Islamic feminists must engage with tradition rather than overlook or undermine it, use contextual approaches to reading, and integrate tools such as history to understand the texts, all while understanding God as the ultimate foundation (2008). This is in line with the methods of Islamic scholars during the classical age (7th-13th centuries), who used their independent reasonings and different analytical tools to develop diverse interpretations of the sacred texts (Rhouni, 2008). Rhouni argues that contemporary Muslims should take after them, which is to take from different experiences and disciplines to find new readings (2008).
Another feature of Islamic feminism is the study of transnational discourse and how it relates to or contributes to the lives and actions of Muslim women. Mahmood (2001) discusses the nature of agency as it is understood by Western feminists and by Muslim women in Egypt participating in the mosque movement. Agency as it is understood by feminists of America and Europe may be quite different from how it is expressed by pious and docile Muslim women. Mahmood (2001) argues that Western feminists need to take greater care to understand the motivations and realities of the women they critique as being subordinate, and she offers alternative ways of expressing self-determination.
In conversation with this piece, cultural anthropologist Lara Deeb (2009) argues that the agency and duty of Muslim women may be understood in the context of public participation as part of their expression of piety. Whereas Western women see Muslim women as “backwards and oppressed” due to their faith, it is the principles of Islam itself that calls them into action and service towards their community and goals of betterment of their societies for women (Deeb, 2009, p. 116). Deeb explains, “women’s public participation is being conceptualized by some pious activists in this community as ‘part of religious duty’, a conceptualization that emerges both from social and religious values like that of mutual social solidarity (takaful al-ijtima’i) and from engagements with transnational discourses about the status and image of Muslim women” (2009, p. 116).
On the discussion of agency and transnationality, Islamic feminist scholar Nima Naghibi (2007) offers the importance of stereotypes in how Muslim women are portrayed by Western feminists. In particular, she argues, the Imperialist notion of unveiling Muslim women as a form of rescue by Western, liberal feminists furthers the narrative that Muslim women are oppressed and denies them their agency (Naghibi, 2007).
Taken together, these articles can be used to understand some of the dynamics that occur when Western feminists’ perceptions and directives diverge from the analysis and lived realities of Islamic feminists and Muslim women. Transnationally, concepts of agency and expression of self must be understood as in a system of exchange between these two groups. Deeb (2009) discusses how in our contemporary world, information and ideas are circulating through electronic media, which themselves are affected and mediated by public perception of women of the West and women of the East, who occupy very different political landscapes of opinion.
Moving into conversations around sexuality and Islam, a number of authors contribute perspectives from historical to feminist to sociological. Historian Mark Hay (2020) provides the term Islamic sexology to describe the variety of sex advice, erotica, and discourse around sexual practices within Islamic history, which he presents as contrasting Western stereotypes of Islam as a sex-negative and puritanical faith. The hadith recounts the variety and plain-ness of questions Muhammad was asked about sex, and the Qur’an even suggests that sex might be understood as sacred (Hay, 2020). Hay (2020) explains that there is a wealth of work produced by Muslims and Islamic scholars regarding sexuality, from jurisprudence on the rules and details of sex to erotica and sexological science from Muslim scientists. Similar to how wadud (2021) argues that Islam has to thank Hellenistic norms for cultural implementation of patriarchy, Hay (2020) posits that it is directly due to colonialism that the extent of the diversity of sexual discourse ultimately vanished by the 19th century. He explains that Islamic societies began to emulate dominant and puritanical British mores to survive, as well as the proliferation of the belief that Islamic “decadence” led to its eventual downfall to the authoritarian and austere Victorian West (Hay, 2020). Hay (2020) argues that when thinking about Islam and sexuality, it must be done with nuance and the understanding that faith is contextual and dynamic – not to uncritically romanticize and mourn the past.
In line with Islamic feminist interpretation of Islamic foundational texts, scholars Lana Sirri (2020) and Asma Barlas (2019) both discuss how sexuality is treated by the Qur’an and hadith. According to Sirri (2020), there is discourse between Islamic scholars on how women’s sexuality should be treated, as the Qur’an appears to take a much more horizontal and gender-equitable approach, in agreement with wadud (2021), but interpreters may cast a woman as a sexual object and a man as a subject with agency in sexuality. Sirri explains that women’s sexuality in Islam is contentious, in part, because of “mysterious pleasure,” otherwise understood as women’s inability to show physical evidence of pleasure or orgasm in the way that men ejaculate (2020, p. 80). She argues that the so-called mysteriousness of women’s pleasure can lead men to question their potency as skilled lovers, which increases their likelihood of disregarding the God-directed right of women to have equal pleasure in the first place (Sirri, 2020).
Barlas (2019) elaborates that the Qur’an implicates the sacred equalness of pleasure and gender. Beginning with the idea of how the Qur’an treats men and women, she argues that men and women are not treated as binary or as a dualism, which conflicts with Western thinking (Barlas, 2019). She states, “the Qur’an does not consider woman a type of man in the presentation of its major themes. Man and woman are two categories of the human species given the same or equal consideration and endowed with the same or equal potential” (Barlas, 2019, p. 161). This notion of equal consideration can be applied to the topic of sex and pleasure, as Barlas does when she engages the idea that according to the Qur’an, women have an equal right to the expression of pleasure and satisfaction (2019). She further explains that sex itself is a divine instrument that creates “man-woman relationships characterized by togetherness, tranquility, love, and mercy” (Barlas, 2019, p. 179).
Complicating this, Ali (2013) examines how patriarchy and other cultural factors intersect with Qur’anic edicts on sex to create a template of sexual ethics that leads many Muslims to struggle in practice, especially women. Ali argues that sex is both social and private, and subject to many rules that are neither uniform or unique between and to Muslim nations (2013). As stated above, marriage is required for sex to be licit, but Ali discusses how for contemporary Muslims, marriage alone cannot serve as the only qualifier for sex to be licit or not, as with growing awareness of rape and sexual assault even within marriages, more and more Muslims are requiring consent to be considered as well (2013). Ali’s article serves to underscore that the practices of sexuality in the day-to-day lives of Muslims do not always map onto Islamic feminist frameworks of divine equity in pleasure and consideration.
Case Studies: Muslim Sex Educators and Advocates
Angelica Lindsey-Ali
Angelica Lindsey-Ali
Reproduced from The Village Auntie (n.d.).
Angelica Lindsey-Ali, a Black American Muslim woman, is known as “The Village Auntie” in her online blog, website, and Instagram. She offers advice, marital counseling, and teaches classes aimed at Muslim women and everyone else about spirituality, personhood, relationships, and sexuality. At the core of her platform is centering women, decentering the Western gaze and the male gaze, and praxis against the oppression of all people, globally (2023, October 30). Lindsey-Ali is an educator, facilitating courses through her online platform, The Village Auntie Institute. These courses are aimed at women and girls, and seek to introduce them to self-understanding and self-awareness. She offers courses with titles such as Foundational Womanhood and Art of Seduction I and II (Lindsey-Ali, 2020). From her Instagram profile, Lindsey-Ali answers questions from her followers about relationships, spirituality, and sexuality.
HEART
HEART
Reproduced from hearttogrow.org (n.d.).
HEART is an American non-profit organization that is focused around sexual health education, training, research, and advocacy for Muslims. According to HEART’s website, their mission is “to promote sexual health, uproot gendered violence, and advance reproductive justice by establishing choice and access for the most impacted Muslims” (n.d.). HEART is driven by several values, which they claim form the foundation of their work, such as faith, empathy, belonging, compassionate truth-telling, and humility.
HEART developed the RIDHA framework (Table 1.) from a prophetic story about the fullness of choice and bodily autonomy as god-given rights, in which the Prophet responded with respect and care when his wife Saffiyah declined sex on their wedding night (2022). The RIDHA framework can be used in sexual dialogue and decision-making (HEART, 2022). In one of their Instagram posts titled, “Renew your NIYYAH: Dating During Ramadan,” HEART states that the RIDHA framework can help Muslim couples have conversations about their relationships in a faith- and value-aligning way (2024, March 3). Aligning oneself with this framework as a Muslim or as anyone in a relationship shows commitment to principles such as compassion, pleasure, nonjudgement, direct communication, individual awareness, commitment to sharing power, consent, boundaries, safety, and trust (HEART, 2024, March 3).
Celebrating 10 years. HEART Women & Girls (2021, August 12).
Table 1.
HEART’s RIDHA Framework
| Rooted in Rahma | Compassion for oneself and one’s context. |
| Informed by knowledge (‘ilm) | Equip oneself with the knowledge one needs to be aware of all of one’s options and needs. |
| Driven by equity and fairness (aDalah) | Equitable access to needed resources and choices. |
| Housed in safety and security (hurm) | Understanding of risks and access to safety. |
| Affirmed in commitment (‘aqd) | Commitment to oneself and one’s values, moving forward with minimal regret or remorse. |
Muslim Sex Education and Advocacy as Islamic Feminist Praxis
When discussing ways of interpreting and practicing Islam, Islamic feminists suggest that the positionality of a person helps develop their own unique reading (Ayat Agah, personal communication, 2024; wadud, 2021). wadud explains that in leaving women out of the interpretative project of Islam, women’s realities are not well understood and integrated into Islamic culture. Both Lindsey-Ali and HEART provide examples of how one’s own experiences as a woman or another identity inform one’s work and perspectives.
Lindsey-Ali discusses how her views on life and Islam are deeply influenced by all of the contextual factors of her life, such as being a mother of four, a child of Black Liberation activists, and a Detroit-native (2023, October 30). Ayat Agah discussed how several Islamic feminist scholars such as Debra Majeed and amina wadud highlighted the role of positionality in piety. Foundational to the experience of a Muslim woman is her gender, her race, her sexuality, her class, and her history. How she interprets and practices Islam will be informed by these positions she occupies, and it may not look as if her practice is in alignment with the established conventions of Islam, as much of these traditions were determined through masculine and patriarchal readings (Ayat Agah, personal communication, 2024; Barlas, 2019). Lindsey-Ali openly acknowledges the presence of the male gaze and seeks to decenter patriarchal worldviews (2023, October 30). She explains that Islam makes space for everyone, and she does not entertain corrections to her expression of her faith (Lindsey-Ali, 2023, October 30).
HEART puts forth the category of most impacted Muslims, describing people who are often excluded or erased from Islamic discourse, such as queer, Black, disabled, and gender non-conforming Muslims (n.d.). In their work, HEART aims to center the voices of most impacted Muslims by drawing from research produced by marginalized scholars and embracing simultaneity, or the practice of acknowledging the overlapping and conflicting ways in which different people are marginalized and hold privilege (n.d.). In their work and posts, HEART acknowledges that there is no one way to be a Muslim. In this way, HEART fulfills wadud’s imperative for minoritized people to be involved in Islamic discourse. By drawing upon the research of marginalized scholars, HEART integrates marginalized perspectives into Islamic culture, at least within the realm of sexual education, research, and advocacy for Muslims. Similarly, Rhouni argues that contemporary Muslims should integrate multiple disciplines and individual perspectives in the interpretative project of Islam, discussing the need to include human and social sciences (2008). HEART does so by diversifying their research base.
Islamic feminism as a project is formed by Islamic principles, as it is a discipline that acts in alignment with Islam and not against it. In arguing for a post-foundationalist reading of Islam, Rhouni stresses the importance of acknowledging the foundations of Islamic jurisprudence. Throughout HEART’s posts, they acknowledge the right to self-determination, or the ability to freely make choices and act with agency for all Muslim people. For example, HEART claims that the only person who gets to make decisions about when and how to engage in sexuality is you, regardless of the messages we all receive from loved ones, media, and our faith (2024, February 13). HEART (2022) argues that this value of free choice originates from the Islamic principle of khilafah, or moral agency. In reference to reproductive justice and sexual practice, khilafah may be understood as Muslim women making informed and free choices about when, how, and with whom to have sex or become a parent. Likewise, HEART (2022) discusses the principle of hurma, the sacred inviolability of a person. Embracing hurma in reproductive justice means to reject sexual, reproductive, medical, and spiritual abuse. Embodying hurma could also be understood as a way to embrace consent as a necessary value in sexuality, a concept which Ali (2013) argues is increasing in importance for contemporary Muslims. By using the principles of khilafah and hurma in their work, HEART acts in alignment with the methodology of Islamic feminism. HEART exchanges with tradition by using Islamic principles to guide their work, rather than overlooking or undermining tradition, as Rhouni encourages (2008).
Islamic feminism complicates the standing discourse of Islam by pulling in the situated knowledges of different feminist contributors occupying various walks of life and value systems. One area in which discourse thrives is the controversial issue of talking about sex, especially when it pertains to what might be seen as illicit sex in Islam. HEART explains that Muslim youth often feel shame and stigma around discussing sexuality (2024, February 13). According to Ali (2013), this may be due to the Islamic principle of comportment, which manifests as the social norm of covering one’s own faults and the faults of others, which could be thought of as saving face. There is a genuine fear to openly talk about sex, especially when the sex being had could be seen as illicit, such as by occurring outside of marriage, or zina, which is a severe offense in Islamic scripture, or the practice of certain acts that are considered haram. An example of such an act is anal intercourse, although according to Hay (2020), anal sex may not be considered forbidden (haram) but just disliked by God and therefore allowed with a consenting partner (makruh). HEART asserts that Muslims are having sex and are dating, and people know that, yet they don’t know how to talk about it in a healthy, values-informed way (2024, March 3). According to Ali (2013), there is an overall unwillingness to “confront the existence of sex outside of marriage… [the principle of comportment] does not allow for serious consideration of how Muslims’ sexual practices have shifted” (58-59). Without the ability to talk openly about sexual choice, it is not easy to securely settle debates on the acceptability of modern sexual relations or anal sex, for instance. Of an even more serious nature, Ali explains that the consequences of so-called illicit sex fall much harder on women, thanks to “patriarchal and sexist limitations of both traditional and contemporary double-standards” (2013, 73). Failure to openly discuss and challenge these systems leads to shame and stigma becoming entrenched in noncompliant and sexually diverse communities, especially between women and queer Muslims.
HEART introduces the RIDHA framework for sexual communication and decision-making, which can serve as a way of changing the cultural landscape around acceptable sexual practice that Ali argues that contemporary Muslims need (2013). Ali argues that sexual relationships need to have boundaries, but for American Muslims, these boundaries may be seen as needing to originate from worn-out sexual ethics that don’t easily map onto the “centrality of sex and sexuality to communal life” in Western society (2013, p. 72). Lindsey-Ali’s Ask Auntie advice-giving segment on her Instagram stories could also serve as a way of communicating openly about sexual practice. Lindsey-Ali serves as a compassionate and humble authority on Muslim romantic and sexual relations, and offers her thoughts on what good practice may look like while still offering that what really matters is the individual’s choices and their own unique relationship with their faith (Ask Auntie, n.d.). For example, when a follower wrote in to ask about her thoughts on oral sex, Lindsey-Ali affirmed that while oral sex is not haram and is a wonderful erotic tool for marriage, it is ultimately up to each individual as to whether they choose to partake in it in alignment with their own boundaries (Ask Auntie, n.d.). By asserting that an individual’s own choices are what matters, Lindsey-Ali demonstrates adherence to the principle of self-determination, which is explored by Islamic feminists (Mahmood, 2001).
The subject of communication and conversation around sex in Islam is tricky, as seen above, however, several sources argue that it is actually a normal and well-established part of Islamic history to ask openly about sex. HEART explains, “there is a long history in Islam of asking questions openly and without shame” (2024, February 13). Hay describes this type of open dialogue as a part of Islamic Sexology. Islamic feminists such as Barlas (2019) and Sirri (2020) discuss the prevalence of sex-related passages in texts such as the Qur’an and the hadith. These passages did not originate in a vacuum, but rather came about as a result of open sexual dialogue, about practices, beliefs, marriage, pleasure, gender, and piety between Muhammad and his followers, or between those scholars in history who wrote down these stories. It is important to not take these passages at face value. One of the key methodologies of Islamic feminism is to critically examine the conception and usage of Islamic texts. In wadud’s (2021) review of feminists’ gender lens in interpretation of the Qur’an, she finds that horizontal and reciprocal frameworks for understanding how men and women are portrayed in relation to each other is more accurate to the original texts. Deeb provides an example of how this reciprocity or equality might be viewed in Islam, discussing the “difference between the musawa, or equality, of the West, which [can be] defined as ‘being identical to or the same as’, as opposed to the ‘adala of Islam, meaning equity or justice that allows for difference” (2009, p. 119). Barlas (2019) echoes this principle, suggesting that the Qur’an supports responsiveness to sexual difference, rather than blindness. To consider men and women as sacredly equal means that sexual relations between them should also be equal. Barlas offers up the idea that according to the Qur’an, sexual and marital relationships must be “based in mutual love, harmony, and fulfillment,” which she argues is revolutionary for the 7th century cultural landscape in which the Qur’an was written (2019, p. 179). However, the practical usage of sexual ethics does not always reflect these ideals. Sirri (2020) explains that despite the fact that “the Qur’an does not portray women as sexual objects, the interpreters do so in order to accommodate their own wishes, interpretations, and objectives” (p. 81). Meanwhile, Barlas (2019) argues that sexual ethics were created by men, largely drawn out of a few scattered passages from the Qur’an, and their patriarchal readings were turned into law and social norms, which preside even today.
Ali (2013) introduces the concept of a sexual morality crisis for contemporary Muslims. She argues that Western Muslims are caught between intersections of religious marriage practices and changing cultural norms, such as the value of consent over formal marriage as the determinant for whether sex should be seen as lawful (Ali, 2013). This is shown in what she claims is the rise of informal and therefore illicit sex and marriage practices, explaining that this could be caused by the “large and increasing gap between sexual maturity, beginning at puberty, and social maturity, the age at which it is socially reasonable to get married” (Ali, 2013, p. 58). Lindsey-Ali demonstrates one example of how this conflict might play out during another one of her Ask Auntie Instagram stories. A follower asked how to manage desire as an unmarried woman, to which Lindsey-Ali affirmed that desires alone are not haram. However, she cautioned, acting upon them would be, so one has to be mindful of what sort of media they take in and how they engage with these desirous thoughts, encouraging them to work out this energy in other ways such as exercise or creativity but also to be patient with themselves if this doesn’t dispel that desire (Lindsey-Ali, n.d.). Understanding that desire is a normal part of life but also accounting for how its implications can be distressing for unmarried Muslim women aligns with Mahmood’s (2001) approach of understanding “traditions in relation to practical engagements and forms of life in which they are embedded” (p. 225). Whereas Lindsey-Ali discusses strategies for the management of these potentially illicit sexual activities, HEART simply acknowledges that such practices occur and that it would do good to remove the stigma and shame cloaking them. Sirri (2020) asserts that according to Qur’anic principles, marriage is a tool for protecting sex from becoming zina, and there are a number of ways in which sex is made more accessible while still maintaining the principles of virtue, such as temporary or travel marriages. Whether or not sexual morality should stay this way is up for debate among Islamic feminists.
Another area of potential conflict for American Muslims is how their sexual relations play out in a region home to Western feminists and their stereotyped beliefs of Muslim women, compounded with notions of sexual progressiveness and liberation. Naghibi (2007) and Deeb (2009) argue that many Western feminists believe that Muslim women are oppressed and in need of rescuing, and that they as feminists have the responsibility to defend them from the harmful, patriarchal systems and practices by which Muslim women are held prisoner. This view denies Muslim women their agency and self-determination (Deeb, 2007). In relation to sexuality, reductionist stereotypes and rescuing fantasies may manifest as the belief that Muslim women are prudes, sexual objects, or sexually repressed and oppressed. Meanwhile, according to Barlas (2019), the Qur’an itself affirms the equality and reciprocity in sexual relations between men and women. Sex is not treated as impure or dirty, but rather as a sacred act of pleasure and enjoyment to be had between two people (Barlas, 2019). However, HEART claims that many Muslims have struggled with sexual relationships and sexual violence (2019). It is for that reason that they work to end the shame and stigma within these communities, empowering more Muslims to think critically about sex and express themselves in a way that aligns with their faith (2019). HEART’s work can be seen as serving as praxis of Islamic feminist visions of sexual equity. Women have as equal a claim to pleasure and satisfaction sexually as men, according to the Qur’an (Barlas, 2019). Sirri (2020) adds that men have a responsibility to please their wives according to Islamic jurisprudence, going as far as to describe the value of foreplay for helping a woman to enjoy intercourse and achieve mutual orgasm. Understanding the depth of texts and work of organizations like HEART and educators like Lindsey-Ali that assess the needs of fellow Muslims in developing their own form of sexual morality shows that Muslims exercise their own power and agency in dealing with issues that affect their communities. Just as scholars like Deeb (2009) argue that Muslim women are perfectly capable at leading their own lives and forms of resistance against systems that oppress them, HEART and Lindsey-Ali are equal to the task of tackling the issues of sexual morality crises or cultural shame around sex without needing to be rescued by Western feminists.
Conclusion
Sexuality, as understood by Americans, Muslims, Islamic texts, and Islamic feminists, is always in flux. Sex is subject to the rules and norms given by a society, and the people who practice it come to play with a wide variety of beliefs on what is acceptable or not. In the case of the Muslim community, and Muslim women and girls, sex is the stage for contention between Islamic values interpreted in the traditional patriarchal sense or with reciprocity and equity as the Islamic feminists take away. Western feminists may read Muslim women with dismissive, sexual stereotypes, these beliefs formed by societal narratives of religion and normative sexual practice, and these stereotypes only add to the atmosphere of misunderstanding and difference that contributes to the distrust, shame, or morality crises invoked by Islamic educators and feminists.
By presenting a dialogue between Islamic feminists and Muslim community creators on the ground like HEART and Lindsey-Ali, I hope to dispel some of the reductionist beliefs that fellow Western feminists may have around sexuality, Islam, and Islamic feminisms. This essay was motivated by the words of Naghibi, who argues “one way of challenging homogenous representations of the Muslim world as backward and in need of civilizing, and of breaking down colonial stereotypes of the Middle East, is to bring together perspectives and methodologies from various disciplines, thereby opening a space for a rethinking of existing social and political paradigms” (2007, p. 145). In this essay, I discussed the works of Islamic feminist scholars who have written extensively on how feminist interpretations of Islamic texts implicate women as occupying an equal position with men in society and in sexuality. These scholars show that understanding the texts and how they influence society means understanding the cultural context they were written and interpreted within. Understanding such a position informs how one pursues their work, which is demonstrated by Angelica Lindsey-Ali and HEART, who work to uplift the voices of people who have been traditionally shut out due to their marginalization, an undertaking that aligns with Islamic feminist theory. By bringing in the concept of transnationality, Lindsey-Ali and HEART’s work can be placed within an environment of exchange, from stereotypes to cultural sexual ethics. Examining the works of Islamic scholars and feminists on the subject of sexuality reveals a wealth of sexual discourse that is often lost on Western onlookers. In bringing all of these elements together, this essay offers an analysis of Muslim sex educators and advocates as acting within an expansive framework of Islamic feminist theory which purports the values of diversity, self-determination, equity, reciprocity, and conversation.
Sexuality is complex, but when we engage in a considerate dialogue, as Islamic feminists ask us to do, with others on such a sensitive subject, our simplistic perceptions of a group’s sexual practices and beliefs have the chance to grow and be challenged, to more accurately and faithfully represent the sexual diversity and similarity present in human life.
References
Ali, K. (2013). Sexual ethics and Islam: feminist reflections on Qur’an, Hadith and jurisprudence. Oneworld Publications.
Barlas, A. (2019). Chapter 6. The Qur’an, sex/gender, and sexuality: Sameness, difference, equality. Believing women in Islam: Unending patriarchal interpretations of the Qur’an. University of Texas Press.
Deeb, L. (2009). Piety politics and the role of a transnational feminist analysis. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15, pp. 112-126. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20527692
Hay, M. (2020). Islamic sexology: Popular stereotypes of Islam as a prudish religion ignore rich traditions of freewheeling, explicit erotica and advice. Aeon.com. https://aeon.co/essays/islam-has-a-long-tradition-of-explicit-sexual-discussion
HEART. (n.d.). Mission / Vision / Values. hearttogrow.org/mission/
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HEART [@hearttogrow]. (2024, March 3). We’ve seen the jokes and tropes: unmarried Muslim couples always break up during Ramadan. For a lot of folks, dating [Photograph]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/C3-SVLQgTvA/?img_index=1
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Anna Lambert is a third-year student at Pitzer College, studying Psychology and Gender and Women’s Studies. Anna’s research interest is human sexuality, anywhere from cultural beliefs, to physiology, and more. Anna is a proud Southern California native, and on sunny days, she enjoys reading or painting outside.