General

Unser Projekt 14 – Dr. Bahriye Üçok, Female Sovereigns in Islamic States, revised and introduced by Dr. Phil. Milena Rampoldi


 Liebe Leserinnen und Leser,

dieses Projekt ist uns sehr wichtig, um einen bescheidenen Beitrag zum islamischen Feminismus zu leisten. Es ist die neue Ausgabe der englischen Übersetzung des Werkes der türkischen Theologie Bahriye Üçok, die 1990 durch eine Paketbombe eines fanatischen Islamisten umgebracht wurde. Der türkische Koordinator von ProMosaik e.V., Herr Aygun Uzunlar, hat die Tochter, Frau Kumru Üçok, in Ankara besucht.

Wir freuen uns auch auf Unterstützung, um das Werk über die weiblichen Herrscherinnen in den muslimischen Staaten in der Geschichte auch in andere europäische Sprachen zu übersetzen, damit diese Autorin und ihr Schicksal nicht in Vergessenheit geraten. 
Damit die muslimische Frau nicht aus der Politik verdrängt wird!!

Wir freuen uns auf Ihre Fragen und Kommentare zum Buch

Ihre Redaktion von ProMosaik 



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Before
presenting the most important ideas of Dr. Üçok’s book and the conception of
Islamic Feminism we would like to thank the author’s daughter, Kumru Üçok Mr.
Aygun Uzunlar of the association ProMosaik visited in Ankara, for her kind
permission to publish her mother’s book in English, German and Italian. With
this first English publication the association ProMosaik wants to contribute to
the gender dialogue in Islam and to the interreligious dialogue to promote
justice and peace. We are convinced that gender justice, as we have already
shown on the basis of Prof. al-Ansari’s essay about political rights of women in
Islam, is a vitally important aspect of a world made of diversity, justice and
tolerance. This first English revised edition should also help us not to forget
the writer who was killed by a bomb attack in 1990.

The first aspect Dr.
Rampoldi stresses on when she comments Dr. Üçok’s book is the historical
approach to the matter of women and political participation in Islam.


If we go back
to history, we start understanding that women also participated in politics in
Muslim countries. Starting from this historical reality, we can see how Islam
originally granted extended political rights to women. And exactly these rights
should be re-granted to women in Muslim countries today by overcoming
segregation and exclusion. In the introduction Dr. Rampoldi explains how this
exclusion was justified religiously, by manipulating and generalizing sources:
“The
androcentric point of view asking for total exclusion of women from Islamic
politics, which has succeeded for centuries, starts from two very daring
conclusions: According to this tradition, women should not be allowed to govern
because their governance means that empires WILL NEVER prosper. But there is an
additional conclusion related to this starting point, and it is the exclusion
based on Quran, Sunna and the consensus of Muslim scholars, on the basis of the
Quranic verse 4:34, which does not relate to politics but to the relationship
between genders in marriage, in which only the husband must financially support
the family. Therefore, from the housewife many traditional scholars
monistically deduct the un-political woman, who is not allowed to participate
in politics and society. They even go a step further by affirming that female
rule is even haram, i.e. forbidden by
Sharia law. However, they take another step by affirming that women do not have
the intellectual and personal skills required by a ruler”.
In opposition
to all that, let us have a look at history: let us read the stories written by
the Turkish author about women ruling in Muslim States from India to Egypt,
from Bhopal to Salgur, from Acheen to Kutluk, to quote a couple of examples.
Let us
understand Islam in PLURAL, let us discover the biographies and political
struggles of women in Islamic countries, women who had to fight in a misogynic
environment. What ProMosaik considers the great contribution made by Dr. Üçok
is her “historical analysis concerning countries and cultural environments,
conditions and modalities according to which women ruled States during Muslim
history”.       
The
world is colourful.
The
world is a big, colourful mosaic made of so many different stones connected
with intercultural and interreligious bridges.