A STUDY OF SA’ADIYYA SHAIKH'S READINGOF IBN AL-ARABI'S THOUGHTS ON WOMEN

In recent years, new readings of Islamic sources have been made. The study of various written works in this field with a scientific approach and by using the correct research methods will have a significant effect on Islamic discourse and research. Sa’adiyya Shaikh, a professor at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, is one of the leading scholars in the field of reviewing the opinions of Muslim commentators. In his book “Sufi Narrations of Intimacy: Ibn al-‘Arabi, Gender, and Sexuality”, he designed a different model for proving the equality of men and women in the Islamic view, and a strategy for analyzing and benefiting from the ideas of Ibn al-‘Arabi as a famous Islamic mystic commentator. The present article has studied the views of Sa’adiyya Shaikh in the aforementioned book by descriptive-analytical method. The most important findings indicate that by emphasizing the necessity of using Ibn al-‘Arabi's mystical attitudes, practices and experiences, he has concluded the similarity of the Islamic view with egalitarian approaches. In criticizing her view, the most important difference between the Islamic approach and the feminist approach will be pointed out that the differences between men and women in the field of creation, responsibilities, rights, as well as belief in the purpose of creation and universal divine wisdom in Islamic thought. From the Islamic point of view, based on the purposefulness of creation, the different sexual identities of men and women are the source of different positions and duties.