Sexuality in Muslim Contexts: Restrictions and Resistance edited by Anissa Hélie and Homa Hoodfar (review)

In this volume, editors Anissa Hélie and Homa Hoodfar bring together eleven essays that collectively explore how women, sexuality, and gender identity are controlled and policed in various Muslim societies, as well as how women resist these policing efforts. Most of the essays in the volume are well-written and thought-provoking, with some standing out for their lucidity and insight. The volume admirably brings together scholars and activists working across the Muslim world, and on a number of issues, around a coherent set of themes and problems, arranged in an intuitive manner. The book will be useful to scholars and students interested in global feminism and sexual rights activism, particularly in Muslim contexts.

The work is divided into two parts, with an Introduction by Hélie. The first part treats the ideas, institutions, and practices through which women and female sexuality are disciplined across the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, with focuses on religion, culture, law, and politics. The essays in the second part then introduce means by which women of different sexual orientations have found ways to resist these disciplinary techniques. Preceding the Introduction is a glossary of terms drawn from Arabic, Persian, Indonesia, Malay, Urdu, Bengali, and Mandarin, which aids in understanding the discourses addressed in the volume. Each chapter is followed by a bibliography; most are extensive, offering a wealth of directions for the researcher.

The essays highlight a number of concepts that can be helpful in theorizing this area of inquiry. One of these is the “obscenification” of women’s bodies in certain arenas, which Vivienne Wee defines as “imbu[ing] a bodily part with the power to arouse desire through its very existence, whether hidden or revealed” (21), a phenomenon well illustrated in Hoodfar’s analysis of women’s participation and presence in Iranian sports. Another useful theme is that of “moral panic,” which Wee describes as “a threat of national collapse due to sexual immorality,” based on the idea that “social order is founded on the disciplining of women.” “Moral panic” is further explored in Hooria Khan’s essay on the criminalization of female non-heterosexuality in Pakistan. Yet another productive theme is that of the “territorialization” of women’s bodies, introduced by Yüksel Sezgin, whereby women represent the motherland in minority or diaspora communities. In her study of Muslim family law in Israel and India, she argues that family laws “demarcate the borders of the community, by regulating whom women may marry and have children with. … [T]ampering with its border markers – the family laws – simply cannot be tolerated by its male members” (106 – 7). Finally, in the concluding chapter, Hélie powerfully argues for the importance of “intersectional” analyses of women’s rights, so that they are never considered in isolation from economic, social, political, and legal factors, and so that we realize that sexuality and gender are not absent from seemingly unrelated discussions of economy, society, politics, and law.

One of the most valuable aspects of this volume is the documentation throughout of concrete mechanisms through which women and female sexuality are controlled, as well as the ways in which women have sought to resist or subvert those mechanisms. The essays thus bring to light specific laws, policies, institutions, organizations, persons, and actions that have been pivotal to the negotiation for women’s rights, both historically and at present. Wee traces key legislation and activism relating to marriage, female circumcision, and dress codes/pornography in Indonesia. Khan looks at Pakistani laws and High Court statements regarding honor killings. Sezgin examines Muslim divorce and maintenance laws in Israel and India. Shadi Sadr details historic Iranian legislation on veiling. Hoodfar highlights the Iranian Open Stadiums campaign. Through concrete examples, we learn about organizations and individuals in a way that feels direct. This is no doubt made possible by the fact that many of the...