{"id":40,"date":"2016-05-05T02:00:11","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T02:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/?page_id=40"},"modified":"2016-05-05T02:00:11","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T02:00:11","slug":"blog-6-islamic-feminism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/blog-6-islamic-feminism\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog 6: Islamic Feminism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Acrylic on Canvas. “Islamic Feminism & Women in Islam.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1655\"<\/p>\n

The last theme I introduce in my blog is that of Islamic Feminism and women in Islam. As women\u2019s bodies have often been the space for defining and redefining Muslim identities in different cultures, it was very interesting to see different examples of how women took that space back, critiquing traditional perceptions of women\u2019s identities in Islam while redefining their identity for themselves.<\/p>\n

I was initially inspired to paint my Islamic feminism portrait after watching the \u201cSomewhere in America\u201d video by the #MIPSTERZ group (Hafiz). The women in this video very confidently project their contemporary identities while boldly riding skateboards throughout the city.<\/p>\n

\"Mipsters\"

(From Hafiz Y, Huffpost Religion, 2015.)<\/p><\/div>\n

I really appreciated the colorful clothing and the cool and bubbly personas that the women gave off in the video. Thus I decided to paint a portrait of a similar modern Muslim feminist. In a similar manner as the women in video, the woman in the painting is wearing a colorful scarf tied knotted to the front of her head and is wearing bright clothing.<\/p>\n

I also wanted to incorporate other aspects of Islamic feminism into this painting. In the contemporary Urdu poem, \u201cWe Sinful Women\u201d, author Kishwar Naheed portrays women as active, intentional, and conscious to the social inequalities. The women are not ashamed of their stance, as the narrators states, \u201cIt is we sinful women\/\u2026who don\u2019t sell our lives\/who don\u2019t bow our heads\/ who don\u2019t fold our hands together\u201d (Ahmad 31). Similarly, the woman in my painting has her head raised and the perspective of the painting is contre-plong\u00e9e <\/em>(a low-angle perspective) to signify that the viewer must physically look up to this modern-day feminist. She returns the look by gazing out to the viewer. Additionally, her facial expression is unclear \u2013 she may be smirking, or slightly smiling, or looking down on the viewer.<\/p>\n

I also wanted to incorporate the imagery of the sun present in \u201cWe Sinful Women.\u201d The narrator of the poem describes how she has higher status since she is a companion of the sun: \u201cI don\u2019t want the shade of lengthening shadows\/I have the support of the rays of the rising sun.\/\u2026 The Sun has chosen me<\/em> for company\u201d (Ahmad 33). In my painting, the woman is surrounded by a warm yellow background, representing the support she receives from sunrays in campaign for feminism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acrylic on Canvas. “Islamic Feminism & Women in Islam.” The last theme I introduce in my blog is that of Islamic Feminism and women in Islam. As women\u2019s bodies have often been the space for defining and redefining Muslim identities in different cultures, it was very interesting to see different examples of how women took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7992,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-40","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7vGmx-E","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/40\/revisions\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/allahmahaba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}