Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 09/2012

Arab Muslim women after the uprisings: the encounter between the liberalisation of Islamist politics and the feminisation of Islamic interpretation

Aitemad Muhanna

June 2012

Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre

Abstract

Women’s participation in the Arab uprisings has been inspired by the expansion of an Islamist-based model of Arab women’s activism and a gradual shrinking of secular liberal women’s activism. The uprisings have provided outcomes that prove the possibility of combining Islam with democracy through the political success of Islamist parties in the post-uprisings era, like in Tunisia and Egypt.