Sa’diyya Shaikh

(University of Cape Town)

Gender, Knowledge and Sufism: An Islamic Feminist Approach

The paper focuses on feminist epistemology and the category of “experience” as it relates to the study of Islam and Muslim societies. Drawing on feminist theory, it critically explores how mystical and mundane notions of “experience” produce forms of gendered knowledge. The paper’s approach is two-fold. First, it provides a critique of particular contemporary representations of women’s experience and feminist subjectivities in relation to Islam. Second, it offers a reconstructive feminist engagement with the category of experience in reading aspects of the Muslim tradition, focusing on the works of 13^th century male Sufi, Muhyi al-Din Ibn ʿArabi. Through a creative dialogue with the ideas of this influential Muslim thinker, the talk aims to contribute both to a critical reflection on issues of feminist epistemology as well as production of new and nascent knowledge by Islamic feminists.

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