Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law.

• Author: Ali, Kecia
• Position: Book review

Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law. By JUDITH E. TUCKER. Theories in Islamic Law, vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. xii + 255. $85 (cloth); $32.99 (paper).

Clearly conceptualized, admirably researched, and lucidly written, Judith Tucker's survey of Islamic legal thought and practice relating to women, gender, and the family builds on two decades of monographic studies on premodern Muslim courts and more recent legislative reforms. Covering marriage, divorce, property ownership and testimony, and gendered space. Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law authoritatively addresses topics often mired in poorly grounded generalizations or extremely narrow ease studies. In doing so, it provides an essential resource for considering how major doctrines have intersected and combined to shape Muslim women's lives through history and into the present.

Contrary to the widespread Western perception that Shari'a is primarily punitive and decidedly oppressive toward women, the scholarly trend seems to be toward recognition that both contemporary and especially premodern Muslims have seen in the concept of Shari'a and in the courts a recourse for justice. Tucker's study bears this out--provided one does not equate justice with equality.

Tucker's introductory chapter begins by surveying western feminist legal theories, with particular attention to liberal theories and their woman-centered critiques (p. 4). This refreshing attention to comparative legal theory serves several purposes. First, it makes the book more accessible to those grounded in western legal traditions. Second, it sets the tone: the Muslim legal tradition is not a system that, exceptionally, treats women badly; rather, the issues she investigates have analogues in Western legal systems. Finally, and most relevant, feminist theoretical lenses allow Tucker to frame constructively her inquiry into how Islamic law takes women's and men's experiences into account and regulates them. She focuses on lour intersecting issues: discrimination/equality; whether the legal subject is "male-normed"; the discursive construction of Man and Woman as legal subjects; and female agency within the scope of the law. Not only will this discussion be useful for non-specialists in Islamic law, it will also permit those with interests in contemporary Muslim debates about gender to move the equality/equity discussion forward. The question of whether equality requires precisely the same treatment of men and women or whether...