embrace the agency of pious believing women. But as Hoel argues, critiques by 3rd world women and believing women particularly those in non-liberal traditions, is beginning to result in a multiplicity of articulations of feminism. In this way the contours of feminism continue to be reconstituted and become increasingly varied, versatile and nuanced, incorporating “broader questions of diversity, location, and the fluidity of multiple subjectivities”, through the introduction of new “productive conceptual and analytical methodologies” as well as incorporating the “liberatory potential” of non-liberal faith traditions, thereby extricating “feminist theorising from ethno-epistemological assertions and homogenous master narratives” (Hoel 2013: 80- 81).55
It is in this vein that I turn to feminist post-structural theory as an appropriate theory for my study of women’s sexual agency in online fatwas. It provides space to engage in gender affirmative work from within a non-liberal faith paradigm and allows me to both expose oppressive gender power dynamics and to uncover potential liberating and transformative impulses that arise from within this paradigm.
able to recognise and account for competing subjective realities and demonstrate the social interests on behalf of which they work (Weedon 1987: 8).
Subsequently, feminist scholars (Mama 2002; Weedon 1987) suggested FPST as the ideal theoretical lens in this regard. It is also a theory with an emphasis on knowledge production through an exploration of relations of language, social constructs and processes, subjectivities and power, which assists in “understanding, changing and transforming social and cultural practices that constitute, reproduce and contest gender power relations” (Weedon 1987: vi).
Relevantly, Judith Baxter distinguishes ‘post structuralism’ from the general philosophical movement ‘post modernism’ as a branch of the latter, in that it is not,
…specific to a single school of thought or academic discipline, but is constituted by a plurality of theoretical positions. However, the specific locus of its interest is in language as a ‘site’ for the construction and contestation of social meanings (Baxter 2003: 6).
Hence it is through language that an analysis of power, social meanings and construction of subjectivities is done. By examining sexual agency in the online fatwas of mufti Ebrahim Desai, the main research question, which is to identify the discursive representation of sexual agency in online fatwas, will be attended to within a feminist post structural paradigm, so that the interplay of knowledge, power and social practice and their influence on the construction and experience of the sexual agency of Muslim women is revealed. Fatwas themselves are also
…considered as discourses between the petitioner and the mufti, or as an interplay between legal argument and social and cultural reality. Fatwas can therefore provide us with insight into the dynamics of continuity and change in the [discursive] Islamic tradition (Larsen 2015: 202).
In their Foucaldian designations, power and forms of knowledge are inextricably linked, producing subjects through a series of discursive practices. Relatedly, “post structuralism proposes a subjectivity which is precarious, contradictory and in process, constantly being reconstituted in discourse each time we think or speak”
(Weedon 1987: 32), thereby accommodating subjectivities which are multiple and
dynamic, continuously produced in the course of social relations, and providing for a more nuanced data collection and analysis process. For example, in my interrogation of the fatwas, FPST allowed for simultaneous and competing subject positions amongst all participants, in which power and powerlessness was in a constantly fluid and changing system. Post structuralism is therefore appropriate to the feminist concerns of this research,
…not as the answer to all feminist questions but as a way of conceptualising the relationship between language, social institutions and individual consciousness which focuses on how power is exercised and on the possibilities for change (Weedon 1987:
19).
3.3.1 Feminist Post Structural Theory and Fatwas
In diverse historical settings of restricted literacy and restricted control of the essential cultural capital that sharī‘a knowledge represents, the relation between mufti and questioner is a relation of power (Masud, Messick & Powers 1996: 21).
Underpinning the interlocutory space of the fatwas, amongst the questioner (mustafti) and the mufti and the question (istiftā ) and answer (iftā) “lies a complex social and interpretive relation”. The trust and reliance placed on the fatwa by the mustafti is inextricably dependent on their reliance on the mufti’s piety, religious knowledge and sense of justice. Of relevance too is an understanding of the social relation between knowledge and power, as the “conceptual distinction between the mufti and mustafti, involve[es] diametrically opposed statuses with respect to the key activity of sharī‘a interpretation” (Masud, Messick & Powers 1996: 20-21). In this social relation only the Mufti is regarded as the interpreter and the questioner is the follower, establishing a wide hierarchical difference between the two.
But this is not only true for historical settings and fatwas. Contemporary online fatwas exhibit a similar relation of power. As a case in point, a question from a petitioner in South Africa posed to the Mufti on askimam.org states:
I would be very much grateful if you could kindly tell me the definition of fatwa and its important . insyaAllah with ur sharing i will share the knowledge to my friends56
The hierarchical difference between the petitioner and the mufti produces a discourse of power in relation to sharī‘a knowledge as seen in the petitioner’s trust and dependence on the Mufti’s knowledge. The petitioner has also donned a follower status, promising to disseminate the knowledge.
Potentially, imposing a post structural lens onto the online fatwas of Ebrahim Desai in this research study, provides us with further “insight into the dynamics of continuity and change” (Larsen 2015: 202) with regards to sexual health rights in the discursive Islamic tradition, and potentially exposes shifts and displacements in the relation of power between male and female members of society, the mufti, his students and his doctrinal school.