What Is Herstory?
Introduction
Herstory should not be confused with just women’s history or history of feminism. Herstory is history written from a feminist perspective, emphasizing the role of women. It is basically history told from a woman’s point a view. Even though the word history is etymologically unrelated to the possessive pronoun his, history and other humanities and sciences were and sometimes still are dominated by men. Therefore the word herstory gets a more powerful meaning by exactly focusing on this false etymology, to show that the interpreter is the one with power. Male authors have more than once seized every opportunity to gain power trough interpreting and telling stories according to their ideals especially to establish their own position.
In this paper I will focus on a specific Islamic Herstory from Azizah Al-Hibri. I use her text as a basis and concrete example that I can use to show the importance of herstory and hermeneutics on a variety of sources. Al-Hibri has written a lot on issues of Islam and democracy, Muslim women´s rights and human rights within Islam. Her other recent articles are about Domestic Violence and Roles of Muslim Women. In this specific article [“A study of Islamic herstory: or how did we ever get into this mess?”] she gives a feminist view on history for “Muslim” women. There are as she herself points out a lote of issues when we discuss this topic. Starting off with already understanding the history of 1400 years in the Arab World. We need to first understand the socio-political conditions affecting women in the Arab peninsula before the rise of Islam. And only after that, the impact of Islam on their lives and society, says Al-Hibri. I the first part of this paper I will focus on Al-Hibri’s article and summarize it so I can later take out the examples I found enlightening or criticize them.
Herstory should not be confused with just women’s history or history of feminism. Herstory is history written from a feminist perspective, emphasizing the role of women. It is basically history told from a woman’s point a view. Even though the word history is etymologically unrelated to the possessive pronoun his, history and other humanities and sciences were and sometimes still are dominated by men. Therefore the word herstory gets a more powerful meaning by exactly focusing on this false etymology, to show that the interpreter is the one with power. Male authors have more than once seized every opportunity to gain power trough interpreting and telling stories according to their ideals especially to establish their own position.
In this paper I will focus on a specific Islamic Herstory from Azizah Al-Hibri. I use her text as a basis and concrete example that I can use to show the importance of herstory and hermeneutics on a variety of sources. Al-Hibri has written a lot on issues of Islam and democracy, Muslim women´s rights and human rights within Islam. Her other recent articles are about Domestic Violence and Roles of Muslim Women. In this specific article [“A study of Islamic herstory: or how did we ever get into this mess?”] she gives a feminist view on history for “Muslim” women. There are as she herself points out a lote of issues when we discuss this topic. Starting off with already understanding the history of 1400 years in the Arab World. We need to first understand the socio-political conditions affecting women in the Arab peninsula before the rise of Islam. And only after that, the impact of Islam on their lives and society, says Al-Hibri. I the first part of this paper I will focus on Al-Hibri’s article and summarize it so I can later take out the examples I found enlightening or criticize them.