FROM COLONIAL FEMINISM TO NEO-ISLAMOPHOBIA: The Political Deployment of Women's Rights in Contemporary Anti-Islamic Narratives

Abstract

The feminist idiom has long served imperial ends. For centuries, Western powers have used the language of women's rights not to help Muslim women, but to justify controlling Muslim societies. Lord Cromer demanded that Egyptian women remove the veil — while at the same time working to stop British women from voting. After September 11, the United States called the invasion of Afghanistan a mission to "liberate" Afghan women. Today, Western governments and aid agencies pressure Pakistan to change its Islamic laws in the name of gender equality. The target changes; the logic stays the same. Drawing on Edward Said, Leila Ahmed, Spivak, Mohanty, and Abu-Lughod, this article traces that pattern and shows how it operates specifically against Pakistan — through international criticism of the hudood laws, purdah, and girls' education — while ignoring Pakistan's own strong Islamic tradition of defending women's rights. The article argues, from an Islamic standpoint, that the Qurʾānic values of karāmah insāniyyah (human dignity) and tawāzun (balance between men and women), read through the maqāṣid al-sharīʿah framework, offer a richer and more honest foundation for women's dignity than Western liberal feminism — which cannot accept as a free choice any decision a Muslim woman makes in the name of her faith. The right response is not apology or retreat. Pakistani Muslim women scholars, jurists, and communities are already doing the work — on their own terms, in their own language — and they need no outside rescue.