'A highly stimulating collection of pieces by notable scholars and activists ... Men in Charge? provides a complex and clearly articulated analyses of the problems with the dominant exegetical and juristic understandings of gender relations ... an extremely valuable contribution to the discourse on gender relations, equality, justice and women's rights in Islam and among Muslims.'

Foreword | Zainah Anwar

Acknowledgements

Note on Translation and Transliteration

Introduction | Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani and Jana Rumminger 

Muslim Legal Tradition and the Challenge of Gender Equality | Ziba Mir-Hosseini 

The Interpretive Legacy of Qiwamah as an Exegetical Construct | Omaima Abou-Bakr 

An Egalitarian Reading of the Concepts of Khilafah, Wilayah and Qiwamah | Asma Lamrabet

Producing Gender-Egalitarian Islamic Law: A Case Study of Guardianship (Wilayah) in Prophetic Practice | Ayesha S. Chaudhry

Islamic Law, Sufism and Gender: Rethinking the Terms of the Debate | Sa'diyya Shaikh

Qiwamah and Wilayah as Legal Postulates in Muslim Family Laws | Lynn Welchman

Islamic Law Meets Human Rights: Reformulating Qiwamah and Wilayah for Personal Status Law Reform Advocacy in Egypt | Marwa Sharafeldin

'Men are the Protectors and Maintainers of Women...': Three Fatwas on Spousal Roles and Rights | Lena Larsen

Understanding Qiwamah and Wilayah through Life Stories | Mulki Al-Sharmani and Jana Rumminger

The Ethics of Tawhid over the Ethics of Qiwamah | Amina Wadud

About the Contributors

Index

Ziba Mir-Hosseini is a legal anthropologist. A professorial research associate at the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, SOAS, University of London, she is founding member of Musawah: Global Movement for Equality in Muslim Family Laws, and the convenor of its knowledge-building initiative to rethink the notion of male authority in Muslim family laws.

Mulki Al-Sharmani is Academy of Finland research fellow and lecturer, Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, and research coordinator of the Musawah knowledge-building initiative to rethink the notion of male authority in Muslim family laws.

Jana Rumminger is currently based in Southeast Asia and works with Musawah, the global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. Her focus is on issues related to reform of Muslim family laws and implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).