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Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations

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Muslim women of power: gender,

politics and culture in Islam
a
Rachel Woodlock
a
Centre for Islam and the Modern World, Monash University,
Australia
Published online: 24 Jan 2012.

To cite this article: Rachel Woodlock (2012) Muslim women of power: gender, politics and culture
in Islam, Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, 23:1, 96-97, DOI: 10.1080/09596410.2011.634600

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2011.634600

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 96 Book reviews

are reading the accumulated opinions of generations of individual Islamic scholars and jurists, or
contemporary interpretations of the Shariʿa in various Muslim societies, without really grasping
‘the rules of Quranic textual discourse’ (p. 45). They simply assume a degree of formal
codification that is not really there. Thus, the commentators are commenting, in effect, upon
the commentaries. For the author, all the evidence – the Qur’an and centuries of tafsīr
(commentary) – clearly demonstrates that this category of jihad ‘is a just war that aims at
stopping aggression or protecting religious freedom of Muslims’ (p. 198). It should come as
no surprise that towards the end of the book Al-Dawoody repeats and affirms the appeals for
international peace and ‘a coalition between the West and the Muslim world’ (p. 196) voiced
by David Miliband, then British foreign secretary, in 2009.
The Islamic law of war is thoroughly convincing in its substance, articulate and sincere.
However, it is a hard read at times and will mostly attract academics (both Muslim and non-
Muslim) keen to learn more about military jihad and related subject matter. The author
reiterates time and again that ‘Islam was born in a culture of intertribal conflicts’ (p. 47) and
that this has shaped the theological basis for conflict – and conflict resolution. This book
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certainly supersedes much of the apocryphal material currently circulating on the topic, and
although one would hope such a book would appeal to a wide readership, especially to those
who otherwise are often guilty of misrepresenting the idea behind ‘jihad’ in the media, I
suspect its intense academic style will limit its circulation.

Abdullah Drury
University of Waikato
abdullah@xtra.co.nz
© 2012, Abdullah Drury

Muslim women of power: gender, politics and culture in Islam, by Clinton Bennett, London,
Continuum, 2010, xviii + 236 pp., £22.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-826-40087-1

In Muslim women of power: gender, politics and culture in Islam, Clinton Bennett surveys the
leadership of five remarkable women who have served as leaders of four Muslim countries.
They are: Benazir Bhutto (Prime Minister of Pakistan, 1988–1990 and 1993–1996); Khaleda
Zia (Prime Minister of Bangladesh, 1991–1996 and 2001–2006); Tansu Çiller (Prime Minister
of Turkey, 1993–1996); Sheikh Hasina (Prime Minister of Bangladesh, 1996–2001 and
2009–now, although this second period is not covered in the book); and Megawati Sukarnoputri
(Vice President of Indonesia, 1999–2001 and President, 2001–2004). The context for Bennett’s
survey is the apparent paradox that Muslim states have had women leaders despite the
perception that Islam oppresses women or prevents them from taking up leadership roles. As
noted by Bennett, ‘Islam/s’ are the product of a diverse range of oppressive and liberating
interpretations, although curiously he takes the believer’s position that there is, nevertheless, a
correct or true Islam. His vision is of a religion compatible with human and women’s rights,
while what departs from that is due to tribal traditions, political ideology or culture.
In Chapter 1, Bennett introduces a number of factors that help or hinder Muslim women’s
empowerment, including: the Islamic context; national security and the role of the military; the
role of family ties; and whether women are more ‘pro-democracy’ than men. He provides
dense background information on the countries that have had women as heads of parliament
and heads of state, acknowledging his use of both old and new media including the wiki-style
New World Encyclopedia, which he helped edit during the writing of Muslim women of power.
 Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 97

In Chapter 2, he describes three positions that people living in the Muslim-majority world take on
the issue of women’s involvement in politics. Position One: Islam is interpreted as valuing but
differentiating the roles of men and women in society, with women precluded from being
leaders. Position Two: Through a challenging re-evaluation of its source texts, Islam is
understood as neither discouraging nor prohibiting women’s involvement in politics or
becoming leaders. Position Three: Islam does exclude and oppress women and it therefore
should not play a role in modern political life. Subsequent chapters before the conclusion are
devoted to the individual women listed above, and explore their lives and achievements after
providing an overview of the geo-political context for each nation.
Bennett finds that religious objections to the women surveyed were opportunistic and
reflected disapproval of them and their parties more than any substantial opposition to Muslim
women’s involvement in politics and leadership in the four countries highlighted. Four of the
five had dynastic ties to dead male leaders and, whilst this may have facilitated their attaining
power (as for many male politicians around the world), it could not in itself explain their
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ability to retain power and/or run in further elections. Whatever role gender played in each of
the women’s careers, it did not necessarily mean their rule was ‘soft’ or ‘feminine’, although
they did attract criticism based on their gender, unlike male leaders in similar positions, whose
gender is never referenced when personality and political styles are analysed. Bennett argues
that Islam and culture are deeply intertwined and extremely diverse and Muslim societies
simply cannot be reduced merely to their ‘Islamic’ dimensions. Nevertheless, Muslim women,
like other women elsewhere around the world, are still restrained by patriarchal power structures.
Problematically, the statistics provided are dense and difficult to wade through, and the book
also suffers from poor editing. A careful edit would have found solutions to deal with the
over-abundance of words in italics, poor paragraph divisions in some areas, citation mishaps,
fuzzy maps, and long and clunky URLs. These problems notwithstanding, this book would be
useful for undergraduates, particularly those interested in Islam and gender, or politics in
Turkey, South Asia and Indonesia.

Rachel Woodlock
Centre for Islam and the Modern World, Monash University, Australia
rachel.woodlock@monash.edu
© 2012, Rachel Woodlock

Women, war and hypocrites: studying the Qur’an, by Robert A. Campbell, Sydney, Cape
Breton University Press, 2010, x + 234 pp., £12.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-897009-53-6

Continuing from his 2009 Reading the Qur’an in English, the aim of this fascinating book is to
provide first-time readers of English-language translations of the Qur’an with some degree of
guidance to the fourth chapter – Sūrat al-Nisāʾ (Women). This is a bold undertaking in which,
happily, Campbell is largely successful. The book covers topics such as marriage and lewdness,
and also – as the title suggest – war and the Hypocrites. Campbell also touches on the
crucifixion of Jesus. His main argument is that there is a degree of coherence and continuity in
the text that is often under-appreciated or misunderstood. He reminds readers that the three
principal objectives of the Qur’an are to convey the message of monotheism, to provide spiritual
guidance and judgment, and to inform ethical behavior. Certainly, whilst there is no grand list of
directives akin to the Ten Commandments of the Bible (although six of them are present in the