Muslim Women's Online Discussions of Gender Relations in Islam

This paper analyses debates of Muslim women who discuss gender relations in Islam in English-speaking women-only online groups. My focus is particularly on Muslim women's engagement with Islamic sources on the levels of existing interpretations and women's own readings. There is a diversity of views on different points and women expertly refer to the Qur'an and to the Prophetic traditions to support their respective positions. I argue that this variety of discourses is characteristic for Muslim women who have engaged with the concept of gender relations in Islam since the emergence of Islam. Finally, as this activity takes place online, the role of the Internet is considered in terms of facilitation of production of women's Islamic discourses. An examination of interactions between the women reveals fundamentally new patterns, specific to the online environments. Whereas Muslim women professing different views on gender relations in Islam tend not to engage in dialogue with each other in the off-line world, they participate in a common online debate which is more likely to result in shared understandings.