Islamico-civil “rights talk”: Women, subjectivity, and law in Iranian family court

Abstract

Soon after the 1979 Iranian revolution, women's appeals for equal protection of their rights were deemed by supporters of the new government to be remnants of European–U.S. imperialism. Over two decades later, Iranian women are at the vanguard of reform, calling for their civil rights once again. Now, with republican ideals authenticated by Islam through Iran's innovative state, an Islamic republic, women push for tangible procedural process in reformulated Islamico‐civil family courts that position them as individual rights‐bearing citizens.

Gender, Madness, Religion, and Iranian-American Identity: Observations on a 2006 Murder Trial in Williamsport, Pennsylvania

“…In the modern period, Western legal codes and procedures were adapted into Middle Eastern legal practice, either through indigenous reform or colonial imposition. Those Western layers and strands remained durable even in the face of recent Islamist rejection (Osanloo 2006a(Osanloo , 2006bBedir 2004;Spannus 2013;Kia 1994;Hoffman 2010). The process of legal reform in Muslim-majority states generally reached personal status and family law later than other areas of law.…”

“…Beginning with the work of Ronald C. Jennings (Jennings 1999, for his collected works), studies of court records have had an enduring impact on Middle Eastern, Islamic and Women and Gender Studies (e.g., (Tucker 1998; Pierce 1999)). In Iranian Studies, fieldwork in contemporary Iranian family courts has catalogued not only patriarchal practices in the Islamic Republic of Iran but also women's resistance to such practices (Mir-Hosseini and Longinatto 2003;Osanloo 2006aOsanloo , 2006b). …”

New Perspectives on Gender in Shari’a-Based Family Law Studies: Moving Beyond the Women’s Issue

“…In the past two decades, the study of Islamic family law has taken a high flight, with an increasing number of researchers focusing on the practical implementation of family law reforms in the courts and its impact on women in Muslimmajority countries and the West (Al-Sharmani 2008;Bernard-Maugiron and Dupret 2008;Carlisle 2007;Caroll 1997;Giunchi 2014;Hirsch 1998;Jansen 2007;Khir 2006;Mehdi 2003;Mehdi and Nielsen 2011;Mir-Hosseini 2000;Moors 1999Moors , 2003Osanloo 2006;Sadiqi and Ennaji 2006;Salime 2009;Shaham 1999;ShahKazemi 2001;Singerman 2005;Sonneveld 2012;Van Eijk 2013Voorhoeve 2009Voorhoeve , 2012Zoglin 2009). While the importance of these studies, shedding light on the complex implementation practices of Islamic family law by courts, judges, lawyers, and family members can hardly be underestimated, they have kept Muslim women at the center of attention.…”

Discourses of Equality, Rights and Islam in the One Million Signatures Campaign in Iran

“…I assert that these discourses have moved from the elite spaces of literary debates to the everyday understandings of ordinary women and men who have learned to negotiate within a hybrid discourse that positions them as modern Muslim citizens. This citizenry sees itself as having rights as the subjects of a modern nation whose judicial system is modeled partly after European courts (Osanloo 2006). At the same time, ordinary Iranians within and outside of the courts have become versed in Islamic law and use their knowledge to argue for a more just version of Islam.…”

“…The grammar of concepts that gives it meaning assumes the autonomy of the individual, and individual subjectivity as, in part, a product of knowing oneself as rights-bearing. As Osanloo (2006) argues, Iranians have come to see themselves as rights-bearing in part because of the unique structure of the courts, modeled after European courts, but also because the hegemony of secular-liberal frameworks has meant that liberal rights discourses circulate in some fashion in most corners of the globe. But Osanloo, Asad and Mahmood do not theorize the ways in which discourses circulate transnationally and then become 'localized' through specific cultural practices.…”