Radical transitions: Shifting gender discourses in Lebanese Muslim Shi'i jurisprudence and ideology, 1960--1979 and 1990--1999

This dissertation deals with the transition in gender discourses in Lebanese Muslim Shi`i jurisprudence and ideology between 1960--1979 and 1990--1999. It deals specifically with the writings and oral pronouncements of four eminent Lebanese Shi'i scholars, Musa al-Sadr, Muhammad Husayn Fadl-Allah, Muhammad Mahdi Shams al-Din, and Muhammad Hasan al-Amin. These scholars began a trend of questioning aged old assumptions underlying gender rulings in legal domains such as the personal status laws, evidence and testimony laws, and employment laws that bar women from becoming judge or head of state. The debates began in the 1960s with Musa al-Sadr, who had incorporated women's issues into his broader campaign for "social justice". Al-Sadr viewed women's roles in public life as an extension of their role in the home and his debates did not adequately raise the issues to higher legal grounds due to his political engagement in the socio-political and economic grievances of the Shi' i community.;In the 1990s, however, Fadl-Allah, al-Amin, and Shams al-Din launched a serious rethinking of gender issues in Islam. The debates that ensued during that period resulted in a body of literature aiming at reconceptualizing gender ideology along gender equality principle. Yet, such theorization was couched within an alternative Islamic perspective of "humane equality". Such reconceptualization resulted in a number of changes in Islamic Shi`i jurisprudence in legal areas such as divorce laws, women's marital rights and obligations, women's right to become judge and head of state. Yet, a number of legal gender rulings remained intact such as wife-beating, child custody, and polygamy, to name a few.;The dissertation attempts to deal with questions concerning the relation between Islamic text and reality. It also addresses questions asked on the consistency of certain gender legal rulings in Islamic Shi`i law that supersede time and local.