Classification of Woman Studies in the Islamic World (part 2)

The scope of the Islamic scholars’ different attitudes towards the modern world, the manner of the application of Islamic teachings, and the challenges arising from newly occurring subjects has influenced on women’s issues, too. In the first part of the paper, published in the previous issue, these studies were classified under the fundamentalist and the intellectualist approaches. Concerning women’s issues, the fundamentalists adopted a cautious reaction to the modernist developments in the West whereas the intellectualists’ attitude towards women’s issues is influenced by the Western modernity and feminism. In this part of the paper, the intellectualist approach is examined under the two categories of modernists and epistemologists. Islamic modernists’ stance towards women’s issues is shaped by their criticism of the traditional approaches and admittance of the Western modern teachings. Under the influence of the recent developments in epistemology, Islamic epistemologists, maintaining the historicity of the religious texts, have tried to present new interpretations of Islamic teachings.