Women and Human Development. Martha C. Nussbaum. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 303 pp.

Women and Human Development.

The increasingly multicultural fabric of modern societies has given rise to many new issues and conflicts, as ethnic and national minorities demand recognition and support for their cultural identity. This book presents a new conception of the rights and status of minority cultures. It argues that certain sorts of 'collective rights' for minority cultures are consistent with liberal democratic principles, and that standard liberal objections to recognizing such rights on grounds of individual freedom, social justice, and national unity, can be answered. However, Professor Kymlicka emphasises that no single formula can be applied to all groups and that the needs and aspirations of immigrants are very different from those of indigenous peoples and national minorities. The book discusses issues such as language rights, group representation, religious education, federalism, and secession - issues which are central to understanding multicultural politics, but which have been surprisingly neglected in contemporary liberal theory.

Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights

This paper argues that the current climate of Islamophobia has burdened Muslim women who cover with additional problems in terms of their politics, their lived experiences and their life chances. It is the contention of this paper that the myths about the hijab have created a modern-day form of Orientalism that objectifies the women who cover and otherizes them as oppressed, perhaps exotic and possibly dangerous. Such stereotypical views, at times articulated by Western feminists, create stumbling blocks that bar the way to the feminist ideal of respect unity and community of goals.

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Can I see your hair? Choice, agency and attitudes: the dilemma of faith and feminism for Muslim women who cover

1. Introduction 2. Woman as wife and man as husband: making the marital bargain 3. Woman and man as divorced: asserting rights 4. Woman and man as legal subjects: managing and testifying 5. Woman and man in gendered space: submitting.

/pdf/women-family-and-gender-in-islamic-law-3rv4x6fbhr.pdf

Women, family, and gender in Islamic law

This article focuses on the issue of domestic violence in Muslim societies in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The analytical framework is comparative, emphasizing four factors and the interplay among them: shari'a (Islamic law), state power, intrafamily violence, and struggles over women's rights. The comparative approach historicizes the problem of domestic violence and impunity to consider the impact of transnational legal discourses (Islamism and human rights) on “local” struggles over rights and law. The use of shari'a creates some commonalities in gender and family relations in Muslim societies, notably the sanctioning and maintenance of male authority over female relatives. However, the most important issue for understanding domestic violence and impunity is the relationship between religion and state power. This relationship takes three forms: communalization, in which religious law is separate from the national legal regime; nationalization, in which the state incorporates religious law into the national legal regime; and theocratization, in which the national legal regime is based on religious law.

Religion, State Power, and Domestic Violence in Muslim Societies: A Framework for Comparative Analysis

"This study offers a conceptual analysis of gender and human rights under Islamic law, state law and international law, and extends this analysis to a specific examination of the nature of women's rights in the Islamic tradition. It explores the disparity between the theoretical perspective on women's rights and its application to Muslim jurisdictions, determined by elements of cultural practices, socio-economic Read more...

Gender and Human Rights in Islam and International Law: Equal before Allah, Unequal before Man?

Through a comparative analysis of crimes of ‘honour’ in India and Pakistan and an examination of appellate judgments from the two countries, we reflect upon how a rights-based discourse of modern nation-states forms a complex terrain where citizenship of the state and membership of communities are negotiated and contested through the unfolding of complex legal rituals in both sites. We identify two axes to explore the complex nature of the interaction between modernity and tradition. The first is that of governance of polities (state statutory governance bodies) and the second is the governance of communities (caste panchayats and jirgahs). We conclude that the diverse legacies of common law in India and Pakistan frame an anxious relationship with the categories of tradition and modernity, which inhabit spaces in between the governance of polities and the governance of communities, and constantly reconstitute the relationship between the local, national and the global.

Legacies of common law: ‘crimes of honour’ in India and Pakistan

Objectives and scope of the study indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities and the right to self-determination problems of definition constitutional provisions affecting indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities in Pakistan institutional arrangements for the protection of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities in Pakistan the tribal areas of Pakistan Baluchistan north west frontier of Pakistan Punjab Sindh State of Azad Jammu and Kashmir northern areas the Kalash conclusions and recommendations.

Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities of Pakistan: Constitutional and Legal Perspectives

In the post 11 September 2001 legal and political environment, Islam appears to have become one of the most misunderstood religions. Islam has been equated with fanaticism, intolerance, violence and wars of aggression – the classical Jihad ideology is often deployed to cast doubts on the compatibility of Islam with modern norms of international law as enunciated in the United Nations Charter. Much confusion stems from the fact that Islamic international law and Islamic laws of armed conflict have not received due attention in western legal scholarship. The concept of Jihad has arguably been central to many modern conflicts including that of resistance to US occupation of Iraq (2003–2005), the struggle for self-determination in Kashmir (1947–2005) and the Palestinian struggle for reclaiming their land from Israel (1948–2005). This article seeks to provide a jurisprudential analysis of the concept of Jihad. Amidst controversies surrounding Jihad, the authors attempt to contextualise the concept and relate the discussion to contemporary norms of International law as established by the United Nations Charter. The authors identify the conditions under which Jihad is permissible in Islamic law in the light of its various sources. The distinction between dar-al-harb (abode of war) and dar-al-Islam (abode of Islam) is presented as this issue impacts on laws of war in Islam. The significance of humanitarian principles within Islamic international law as well as in Islamic humanitarian law is highlighted. Self-exertion in peaceful and personal compliance with the dictates of Islam (constitutes) the major or superior Jihad.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1496327_code1348672.pdf?abstractid=1496327&mirid=1&type=2

Shaheen Sardar Ali

Papers

Gender and Human Rights in Islam and International Law: Equal before Allah, Unequal before Man?

Legacies of common law: ‘crimes of honour’ in India and Pakistan

Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities of Pakistan: Constitutional and Legal Perspectives

The Concept of Jihad in Islamic International Law

Human rights, plural legalities, and gendered realities : paths are made by walking