Classification of woman studies in the islamic world (Part 1)

During the past 150 years, there has been a widespread concentration on women studies in the Islamic world. To understand the different stages of the development of these studies, the present paper presents a primary classification of all the Islamic studies, with an emphasis on twentieth century writers, in the field of women’s issues. These studies are basically classified under the two rubrics of fundamentalist and intellectualist approaches. The fundamentalist approach, being under the influence of the thoughts of modernist islamic scholars, is itself divided into the no-salafi and the ‘edjtihādi [jurisprudential] approaches. The no-salafis, like Seyyed Ghotb, tried to solve women’s problems by resorting to kitāb [Koran] and the heritage of the predecessors [salaf], while the ‘edjtihādis, like Morteza Motahhari, Shams-addin, and Fazlollah, in addition to emphasizing the texts [nosus], considered credibility for reason, as well. The intellectualist approach will be presented in the next issue of the quarterly.