Scholarly feminist versus internet commentator on women issues in Islam

Abstract

This article discusses two different types of contemporary writings both "scholarly feminists" and "internet commentators" on women in Islam; particularly issues related to gender equality such as women's rights, status and creation. By comparing two different groups of writers, the objective of this paper is to discover whether there are significant differences between them on issues of women in Islam, which shed light on modern Islamic thinking. From a brief investigation of several books as representatives of scholarly feminists, and several websites, which publish many articles on women in Islam, as representatives of Internet commentators, it is clear that both groups seem to have similar attitude on the topic. They tried to clarify a common misperception of women in Islam which is commonly portrayed to be "a second class". Moreover, it is clear that the message of 'Internet commentators' seem to be more effective and more likely to prevail.