The Moroccan Personal Status Law and the Invention of Identity: A Case Study on the Relationship between Islam, Women, and the State

Abstract

This paper uses Muslim women’s activism against Morocco’s Personal Status code as a case study to challenge widely held notions about the relationship between Islam and women’s rights, and to examine the production of religious knowledge in pursuit of political goals that directly affect women. Using women’s activism against Morocco’s Personal Status Code, I analyze the state’s use of religious symbols and religious discourse to affect constructions of gender in a bid for cultural, as well as political, hegemony. In so doing, I challenge the positioning of gendered citizenship as Islamic,” and tease out the connections between Morocco’s gendered citizenship framework, the political appropriation of religious discourse, and the construction of the “family” as a cultural phenomenon. Additionally, I explore women’s forms of protest, arguing that women’s use of Islamic discourse and jurisprudence was a successful strategy, problematizing the notion that Islam and progressivism are mutually exclusive frames. Finally, I link this particular case study to other examples of Islamic feminist activism in the Middle East in order to propose a lens for understanding the relationship between gender, the family, and the state in Muslim countries.