Do Muslim Women Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod

The second main task the author sets for herself is a careful interrogation of the concept of saving through a close probing of the thornier question of rights. She finds that all of these representations tend, cumulatively, to produce something she calls 'Islamland,' a world in which Islam is as coherent and monolithic as it is oppressive. First, Abu-Lughod looks at Muslim women around the world-or, more accurately, at how those women are looked at-examining highbrow academic and journalistic studies of gender in Islam as well as the more harrowing accounts of the desperate-women-saved-from-Islam and evil-Muslims-kill-women-for-honor variety. That's not as much of a spoiler as it might seem, because her book is actually less about what the question asks than the question itself: What does it mean to ask if Muslim women need saving, and what assumptions does that question make about the meanings of Muslim and the nature of women's rights? Instead of delivering another diatribe about Muslim women-whether lamenting their victimization or insisting on their misunderstood condition -Abu-Lughod explains why worrying about Muslim women is not as simple, or as innocent, as it looks.ĭo Muslim Women Need Saving? is actually a sort of double deconstruction, taking on both nouns in the book's title. Spoiler alert: Lila Abu-Lughod, distinguished Columbia University anthropologist, feminist theorist, and Islamic studies scholar, does not believe that Muslim women need saving. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Do Muslim Women Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod