Orthodox Muslim Women’s Agency in Shari‘ah-Based Devotional Life

Orthodox Muslim Women’s Agency in Shari‘ah-Based Devotional Life: Comparison

Please note this is a comparison between Version 2 by Catherine Yang and Version 1 by Musthajab Kodur.

This article explores the lived realities and theological perspectives of orthodox Muslim women who willingly embrace Shari‘ah-based gender roles as a form of agency, not subjugation. Through a synthesis of classical Islamic scholarship and contemporary Islamic thought, the study examines the concept of zuhd (asceticism) and its role in shaping women’s ethical choices, particularly in preferring home-centered responsibilities over public professions. By drawing on primary Islamic sources—including the works of al-Ghazālī, al-Shāfiʿī, and Ibn Taymiyyah—as well as the contributions of modern scholars like Zainab Alwani and Abdal Hakim Murad, the paper challenges dominant feminist critiques of Islamic patriarchy. It argues that the traditional domestic roles of women, when chosen freely and understood spiritually, represent an alternative framework of autonomy rooted in ethical restraint, contentment, and divine purpose. The article contributes to current debates in Islamic gender studies by offering a nuanced interpretation of female agency within a Shari‘ah-committed lifestyle, and counters monolithic narratives that equate empowerment solely with public participation or economic independence.

Orthodox Muslim Women
Zuhd
Shari‘ah-based Roles
Gender Ethics in Islam
Spiritual Agency
Modesty

Contentment in Devotion: A Study of Orthodox Muslim Women’s Agency in Shari‘ah-Based Lifestyles

Musthajab kodur

Abstract

This paper explores the agency, contentment, and ethical fulfillment of orthodox Muslim women who choose to live within the parameters of Islamic law (Shari‘ah), particularly those who embrace traditional roles of modesty, domesticity, and spiritual seclusion (zuhd). Challenging mainstream feminist and postcolonial portrayals of such women as passive or oppressed, this study argues that traditional Muslim women represent an autonomous form of religious agency. Drawing on classical Islamic jurisprudence, Qur'anic exegesis, prophetic tradition, and contemporary testimonies—including a case study of an observant Muslim woman—the paper frames these choices not as a retreat from modernity but as a deep affirmation of divine purpose. It further critiques the misapplication of feminist metrics that evaluate Muslim women’s empowerment solely through public visibility or economic productivity.

Keywords

Orthodox Muslim Women, Zuhd, Shari‘ah-based Roles, Gender Ethics in Islam, Spiritual Agency, Modesty

1. Introduction

The discourse surrounding Muslim women in both academic and policy circles has long been shaped by paradigms of liberation, resistance, and victimhood. Particularly in postcolonial and feminist literature, Muslim women’s lives are often interpreted through a secular-humanist lens, in which visibility in public life, economic independence, and freedom from gendered roles are viewed as the primary indicators of empowerment. Within this narrative framework, orthodox Muslim women—those who embrace traditional roles defined by Islamic law (Shari‘ah) with conviction and spiritual joy—are frequently marginalized, misunderstood, or presented as passive recipients of patriarchal structures.

This research challenges that reductive narrative. Drawing inspiration from the life and worldview of the author's own mother—a devout Muslim woman who finds fulfilment and freedom within her Shari‘ah-based domestic and spiritual roles—this study seeks to re-centre the discourse on female piety, zuhd (spiritual asceticism), and theological agency. It presents a detailed examination of women who intentionally choose to live within what many secular frameworks dismiss as restrictive or obsolete roles and argues that such women should not be seen as anomalies, but as representatives of an often-silenced epistemology within Muslim societies.

Through a rigorous engagement with Qur’anic injunctions, Prophetic traditions, and the ethical theories of classical scholars such as Imam al-Ghazālī, al-Shāfiʿī, Ibn Qudāmah, and al-Nawawī, as well as insights from contemporary Muslim scholars like Hamza Yusuf, Abdal Hakim Murad, Zainab Alwani, and Ingrid Mattson, this research explores how Shari‘ah-based lifestyles can represent a valid and powerful form of female agency. These perspectives are not presented in opposition to modernity per se, but as a critique of a monolithic modernism that fails to accommodate spiritual, familial, and metaphysical values.

This research argues that orthodox Muslim women redefine progress through sacred intentionality, viewing submission as a purposeful act, modesty as an ethical presence, and selective absence from public spheres as a commitment to divine order, communal harmony, and personal piety, rather than oppression. It is a theologically grounded, empirically informed study that highlights how these women assert agency within their religious tradition, not in defiance of it, and challenges Western feminist metrics by urging academia to recognize the diversity and spiritual depth of their choices, without romanticizing domesticity or excusing cultural patriarchy.

2. Islamic Foundations of Gender Roles

Islamic conceptions of gender roles are neither arbitrary nor culturally contingent—they are divinely revealed structures intended to promote balance (mīzān), mutual responsibility, and moral harmony within society. This structure is not built on notions of dominance or inferiority, but on functional differentiation, designed by the Creator with due wisdom and compassion.

The foundational verse often cited in this context is:

“Men are the protectors and maintainers (qawwāmūn) of women because Allah has given one more (strength) than the other, and because they spend out of their wealth…”

(Qur’an 4:34)

This verse contains the term qawwāmūn, which has been explained by classical scholars such as Imam al-Ṭabarī (d. 923) as referring to men’s duty to ensure the moral, financial, and physical care of women—not their dominance. Al-Ṭabarī affirms that this guardianship is not about superiority, but about accountability and divine assignment of roles based on natural inclinations and responsibilities (Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī).

Similarly, Imam al-Qurṭubī (d. 1273), a leading Maliki jurist, in his al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qur’ān, emphasized that the qiwāmah is conditional on men's fulfillment of nafaqah (financial support) and good treatment. Failing in those duties, he argues, makes men accountable before God, negating any claim to superiority.

"God has made the man a caretaker not to dominate, but because he bears the burden of provision and risk."(Qurṭubī, Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qur’ān, vol. 5)

Beyond this, Surah al-Aḥzāb (33:33) establishes that women’s engagement in the home is not an act of confinement, but of honor:

“And stay in your homes and do not display yourselves as women did in the days of ignorance.”

(Qur’an 33:33)

This verse has been misread in modern contexts as a command to remain invisible. But classical tafsīr (interpretation) shows that this verse was not a universal prohibition against movement but an injunction toward dignified behaviour and preservation of the spiritual sanctity of the home. Ibn Kathīr, in his commentary, affirms that the verse seeks to cultivate ḥayā’ (modesty) and sakīnah (tranquility), not female exclusion from public space.

The home, in Islamic epistemology, is the first madrasah (school), and the woman is its scholar. Imam al-Shāfiʿī (d. 820) emphasized that the honour of a woman is maximized when her contribution is to her family and community through nurturing, rather than seeking leadership roles that burden her outside her nature (referenced in Kitāb al-Umm).

This does not negate her right to work, lead, or teach - many female companions did so - but the primary normative recommendation remains rooted in preserving the familial fabric and delegating outward provision to men. The Prophet ﷺ exemplified this through his wives, particularly Umm Salamah and ʿĀʾishah, who were scholars, yet remained deeply rooted in their homes, transmitting Hadith and teaching without discarding their domestic roles.

Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350), further elaborates in Zād al-Maʿād that the structure of gender roles in Islam is not rigid, but principled. Where necessity or talent calls for a woman to engage in work or public service—especially in times of societal need—it becomes permissible and even commendable, provided it adheres to the ethics of modesty and intention.

In contrast to secular constructs of gender as social invention, Islam posits gender as a divine trust (amānah) and fitrah-based differentiation. The Qur’an affirms:

“And the male is not like the female…”(Qur’an 3:36)

This declaration, as noted by al-Rāzī in Tafsīr al-Kabīr, is not a value judgment but a recognition of essential distinction, which forms the basis for role differentiation in law, worship, inheritance, and leadership. Gender roles in Islam are metaphysical and ethical, not just sociological.

Further support comes from the Prophetic tradition. In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ said:

"A woman is a guardian over her husband's house and his children, and she is responsible for them."

(Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Hadith 1829)

This language of responsibility (raʿāyah) is the same applied to governors, rulers, and scholars—thus attributing great spiritual weight to her domestic role.

In the Hanafi legal tradition, Imam al-Kāsānī (d. 1191) wrote in Badā’iʿ al-Ṣanā’iʿ that while women may work or engage in trade, the ideal role is her preservation of household sanctity. This is not because of incapacity, but because her sphere is elevated and protected, not dismissed.

Moreover, the woman’s modesty and preservation of her inner world (her ʿawrah) are considered spiritually protective. Imam al-Nawawī in Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim affirmed that the highest spiritual ranks for women in history Maryam (AS), Khadijah (RA), Fāṭimah (RA) were not public figures, but pillars of domestic and spiritual grace.

Thus, Islamic gender roles are not mechanical restrictions but divinely crafted ecosystems that create equilibrium between the spiritual and social dimensions of human life. They offer a holistic theology of responsibility, protection, and cooperation, rather than a battle over superiority.

3. Zuhd and the Contentment of Orthodox Muslim Women.

At the heart of this study lies the question: What does it mean to be free, dignified, and fulfilled as a woman? For orthodox Muslim women who ground their lives in the framework of Shari‘ah and spiritual simplicity, the answer does not mirror liberal, individualistic paradigms of empowerment. Rather, it emerges from the Qur’anic and prophetic vision of zuhd—the ascetic devotion to God, the embracing of spiritual richness through obedience. This ethic forms the spiritual core of orthodox Muslim womanhood, a way of being that is both countercultural and deeply rooted in Islamic tradition.

3.1. Zuhd as Ethical Agency, Not Withdrawal

Zuhd, often misunderstood in modern discourse as withdrawal or self-denial, is in fact a form of spiritual empowerment. It is not an act of rejecting the world due to incapacity, but a deliberate, conscious elevation of values—choosing the eternal over the ephemeral, the divine over the material. As Imam al-Ghazālī defined it:

“Zuhd is not about owning nothing. It is about nothing owning you.”(Iḥyā ʿUlūm al-Dīn, Book 31)

For many orthodox Muslim women—including my mother—this spiritual economy is central. She does not pursue employment or public visibility not because she is confined by force, but because she views domestic life, religious worship, and nurturing others as direct acts of `ibādah (worship). Her life is structured around prayer, service to family, Qur'anic teaching to children in her neighbourhood, and maintaining an atmosphere of sakīnah (tranquility) in her home. To her, these roles are not marginal—they are her arena of influence, reward, and joy.

This position is not unique, nor is it outdated. Orthodox Muslim women across communities—urban and rural, literate and scholarly—report deep satisfaction in fulfilling gender roles laid out by revelation. They see themselves as carriers of divine trust (amānah), not victims of male control. These narrative challenges the dichotomy often presented in academia: that a woman is either liberated and public, or oppressed and hidden. Orthodox Muslim women present a third path: freedom in submission.

3.2. Zuhd as Resistance to Consumerist Feminine Ideals

Modern secular feminism, especially as exported through global media and fashion industries, constructs a woman’s worth in terms of visibility, productivity, and individualism. Orthodox Muslim women, instead, embody a counter-discourse—one of modesty, community, and spiritual productivity.

In rejecting the modern ideals of hyper-consumerist femininity—glamour, commodification of the body, capitalist productivity—these women practice cultural zuhd. They are not anti-modern but post-material: living within modernity without internalizing its gods.

Contemporary Muslim thinkers such as Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah emphasize this paradigm. He writes:

“Islamic civilization grew through the domestic strength of women who did not need to be in the marketplace to shape their societies.”(Foundations of the Sacred Law, 2006)

Likewise, Ingrid Mattson, in her examination of Muslim spirituality, notes that many women in pre-modern Islamic societies “remained in domestic spaces but wielded profound educational and spiritual authority” (The Story of the Qur'an, 2008). The home, far from a prison, was a place of influence—and for orthodox women today, it remains so.

3.3. A Voice Often Misrepresented in Academia

What has been notably absent in much of the gender-focused Islamic studies literature is a genuine engagement with orthodox women’s perspectives. Scholars such as Leila Ahmed, Fatima Mernissi, and Amina Wadud have made important interventions in highlighting misogynistic misreadings of Islamic sources. However, their critiques often treat traditional gender roles as intrinsically problematic, rarely considering that women might embrace them freely, consciously, and spiritually.

This absence has led to what we may call the “empowerment bias” in Islamic feminist discourse: the assumption that empowerment must always look like greater visibility, external activism, or financial independence. Yet empowerment in Islam can also be internal, quiet, and God-centered.

As Ziba Mir-Hosseini acknowledges in her later work, there is an increasing need to listen to women who “do not seek change,” but rather “deepen their roots” within their faith traditions (Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law, 2013). The orthodox Muslim woman, thus, becomes a new academic subject, worthy of investigation not as an object of critique, but as a carrier of Islamic agency.

3.4. My Mother’s Worldview: Lived Zuhd in the 21st Century

As a living example, my mother represents this form of empowered tranquillity. Her views are not based on a lack of education or access but on deep faith and understanding. She asserts:

“God gave man the duty to serve woman—not the other way around. My job is to raise souls, not economies.”

Her vision, like that of many orthodox women, is that true peace lies in fulfilling divine order. She neither resents politics nor resists public progress. She simply chooses not to be part of it, finding her Jannah in the private domain Allah has entrusted her with. This worldview deserves scholarly attention—not as a cultural remnant, but as a viable Islamic ethic.

4. Agency within Boundaries: Public Participation with Ethics

The concept of agency is often narrowly defined within contemporary gender discourse. In secular feminist theory, agency is typically measured through outward participation—economic self-sufficiency, political representation, visibility in leadership, or resistance against patriarchal structures. However, from within the Islamic tradition, agency is more expansive: it includes not just outward autonomy but intentional moral action (amal) in obedience to divine command. Thus, for orthodox Muslim women who live by the framework of Shari‘ah, public engagement is not forbidden but is bound by niyyah (intention), ḥayā’ (modesty), and adab (ethics).

4.1. Qur'anic and Prophetic Models of Female Participation

The Qur’an itself does not prohibit women from engaging in public affairs. On the contrary, women are active agents in several key narratives:

The Queen of Sheba (Qur’an 27:22–44) is portrayed as a wise ruler who exercises political judgment, negotiates diplomacy, and ultimately submits to divine guidance—her leadership is not condemned, but praised for its moral intelligence.

Umm Salamah (RA), one of the Prophet ﷺ’s wives, offered decisive counsel during the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, which the Prophet followed—a significant moment of female political insight (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Book 59).

The woman who publicly questioned ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb in the mosque regarding women’s rights in dowry was not silenced but publicly affirmed (al-Ṭabarī’s Tārīkh).

The Prophet ﷺ declared:

“Women are the full spiritual partners of men.”(Abū Dāwūd, Hadith 236)

This recognition offers theological grounding for women’s moral autonomy and participation, not as a violation of male guardianship, but as its complementary dimension.

4.2. Classical Juristic Views: Permission with Parameters

Islamic jurisprudence across the four Sunni madhāhib never categorically prohibits women from public roles. Rather, they discuss context, need, and ethics.

Imam al-Shāfiʿī, in Kitāb al-Umm, permits women to conduct business and represent themselves legally.

Imam Mālik held that women may testify in court in specific cases and be witnesses in trade, provided it does not compromise modesty.

Ibn Taymiyyah allowed women to teach men in certain religious contexts, citing the precedent of ʿĀʾishah bint Abī Bakr (r), who narrated over 2,000 Hadiths and taught from behind a curtain.

Ibn Ḥazm (Ẓāhirī school) was particularly progressive, writing in al-Muḥallā that there is no text prohibiting women from being judges or heads of state, although most jurists have taken a more cautious approach.

This juristic flexibility is rooted in maslahah (public benefit) and urf (custom), affirming that female participation is not sinful when done with ethics, modesty, and necessity. It’s not the act of being in public that is contested, but the moral framework under which one appears.

4.3. Modesty and Purpose: Ḥayā’ and Niʿmah in Public Ethics

Orthodox Muslim women do not reject public life entirely; they redefine how to be public. The Prophet ﷺ did not equate modesty with invisibility, but with dignity. A Hadith states:

“Every religion has a distinct character, and the character of Islam is modesty (ḥayā’).”

(Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Mājah, 4181)

Islamic modesty is not suppression but intended concealment for spiritual preservation. Orthodox Muslim women assert their public presence through service, teaching, charity, and intellectual contributions—but with boundaries in dress, manner, and intention. They do not seek to imitate masculine modes of agency, but to embody feminine piety rooted in divine law.

This ethic is clearly seen in the lives of premodern Muslim women. As Asma Sayeed documents in Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam (2013), hundreds of women taught Hadith in medieval Damascus and Cairo, often to male students, while remaining committed to domestic and religious life.

Sayeed emphasizes that their participation was not an act of social rebellion, but an extension of religious duty. These women were scholars because they saw knowledge as a trust (amānah), not a status symbol.

4.4. Contemporary Scholarship: Participation without Secularization

Modern Islamic thinkers have begun articulating models for female participation that do not rely on Western feminist norms. Scholars such as Ingrid Mattson, Sherman Jackson, and Zainab Alwani argue that Shari‘ah-compliant participation is both possible and necessary in pluralistic societies.

Zainab Alwani writes in Muslim Women and Global Challenges (2013) that participation in civic life can be a form of iḥsān—excellence in public ethics—when grounded in taqwā and Qur’anic morality.

Sherman Jackson warns in Islam and the Blackamerican (2005) that importing Western feminism into Islamic theology can result in a loss of spiritual integrity and theological coherence. He proposes “communalism over individualism” as a model that allows women to act as public moral agents within religious bounds.

The orthodox Muslim woman does not view divine roles as constraints, but as sacred boundaries. Her public presence is not a rebellion against tradition but a manifestation of ethical continuity. She is not invisible—she is intentional. She does not reject participation—she chooses its terms.

In a world where liberal secularism often reduces agency to “being seen,” orthodox Muslim women offer a spiritual redefinition of agency: to act freely within God’s will, not outside of it. This paradigm deserves serious academic inquiry as a post-secular model of feminist ethics rooted in divine accountability.

5. Rebutting Feminist Critiques of “Patriarchy

The charge that Islam is “patriarchal” is one of the most enduring critiques posed by secular feminist theory and liberal academia. This critique generally rests on the assumption that any divinely sanctioned difference in gender roles—particularly when men are assigned leadership or financial responsibility—is inherently oppressive and a form of unjust male dominance. However, this assumption often imports modern Western constructs of patriarchy, which are rooted in historical abuses in Europe and America, and applies them indiscriminately to all religious traditions.

5.1. Redefining “Patriarchy”: Between Power and Responsibility

Contemporary Islamic scholars, such as Hamza Yusuf, argue that what secular feminism defines as patriarchy must be reframed in light of Islamic metaphysics and moral law. In his lectures and writings, Yusuf explains that Qiwāmah (male responsibility) is not power over women, but an obligation to care for, protect, and provide. He states:

“If men are qawwāmūn over women, it is not because they are better — it is because they are responsible before God. They will be questioned on how they protected the honour, sustenance, and spiritual growth of the women in their lives.”(Hamza Yusuf, Commentary on Qur’an 4:34, Zaytuna Lecture Series)

This concept aligns with the Qur'anic view in Surah al-Nisā’ (4:34), which defines male responsibility as rooted in expenditure and guardianship, not domination. Misusing this framework to justify control is, in fact, a sin in Islamic jurisprudence.

Similarly, Abdal Hakim Murad (T.J. Winter), Dean of Cambridge Muslim College, challenges the use of the term “patriarchy” when applied to Islamic family structure. In Travelling Home (2020), he critiques the pathologization of tradition in Western liberal discourse:

“The assumption that all hierarchy is oppressive is a modern invention. Pre-modern societies, including the Muslim world, often saw asymmetrical roles as part of a divinely-ordained harmony, not a structure of injustice.”(Abdal Hakim Murad, Travelling Home, p. 111)

He emphasizes that Islamic leadership is always coupled with burden and service, not privilege. Thus, a husband or father’s role is not one of superiority, but accountability.

5.2. Women Scholars Speak: Divine Order vs Cultural Distortion

To claim that Islamic gender roles are inherently patriarchal or unjust is also to ignore the voices of devout Muslim women scholars who have articulated a distinct theological feminism—one that seeks justice within the framework of Shari‘ah, rather than in opposition to it.

Dr. Ingrid Mattson, former President of the Islamic Society of North America and a distinguished scholar of Islamic theology, frequently warns against conflating abuses in Muslim societies with the essence of Islamic teachings. She notes:

“The ideal Muslim man is not a tyrant but one who follows the example of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ — who washed clothes, cooked, consulted his wives, and never raised his hand in anger.”(Ingrid Mattson, the Story of the Qur'an, 2008)

Mattson acknowledges that cultural patriarchy exists, but distinguishes it sharply from Qur’anic ethics. True Islamic family structures, she argues, are based on mutual mercy (raḥmah) and spiritual partnership (zawjiyyah), not hierarchy.

Likewise, Dr. Zainab Alwani, one of the foremost scholars of Usul al-Fiqh (Islamic legal methodology) and gender, has pioneered a theological reading of the Qur’an that upholds gender differentiation without succumbing to oppression. In her essay “Muslim Women and Global Challenges”, she writes:“Islam’s legal structure provides differentiated, not unequal, roles. These distinctions are rooted in biological, spiritual, and social realities—not in superiority. Justice in Islam does not mean sameness.”

Her legal hermeneutics push back against both cultural patriarchy and secular feminism, asserting that Islamic texts must be read holistically, not through isolated lenses of gender hierarchy.

Islamic anthropology posits that men and women are equal in spiritual worth but complementary in functional roles. The Qur’an repeatedly affirms this:

“Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you.”

(Qur’an 49:13)

“Whoever does righteous deeds, male or female, while being a believer — we will surely grant them a good life?”(Qur’an 16:97)

This framework emphasizes taqwā (God-consciousness) and ʿamal ṣāliḥ (righteous action) as the true criteria of honor—not gender, wealth, or public authority.

Joseph Lumbard, a prominent Islamic scholar and former advisor to the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute, writes in The Study Quran:

“The Qur'an is not a text of male privilege; it is a text of divine responsibility. Any reading that imposes modern gender ideology onto it fails to grasp its spiritual anthropology.”

(Lumbard et al., The Study Quran (2015), p. 552)

Hence, the critique of Islam as “patriarchal” collapses under closer theological study. The Islamic worldview does not build structures of inequality; it builds structures of ethically differentiated duties that correspond to nature (fiṭrah), revelation, and community needs.

Orthodox Muslim women who accept traditional roles—especially those informed by spiritual asceticism (zuhd)—are often mischaracterized in feminist literature as lacking voice or agency. But as shown throughout this paper, these women are choosing submission as freedom, and see their familial duties as pathways to divine proximity, not as impositions.

As Saba Mahmood (1957–2018), an anthropologist and secular academic, wrote in her ground-breaking work Politics of Piety (2005):

“The ability to suffer, endure, and obey divine authority was seen by many women as a form of power—not passivity. Agency is not only resistance, but the capacity to inhabit and inhabit well the conditions set by one’s ethical commitments.”

6. Contemporary Debates and the Problem of Monolithic Narratives

In modern scholarship on gender and Islam, a persistent problem emerges: the dominance of monolithic narratives—especially within feminist, human rights, and liberal discourses—that present Muslim women’s experiences through a uniform lens of marginalization, resistance, or victimhood. These narratives, while often rooted in legitimate concerns about legal inequality and cultural abuse, tend to erase or side-line the voices of orthodox Muslim women who consciously and joyfully embrace traditional roles defined by Shari‘ah.

6.1. The Limits of the “Muslim Woman as Victim” Narrative

The prevalent academic framing of Muslim women is often built around liberation examples—those that emphasize secular liberation, visibility, and economic autonomy as metrics of empowerment. In this scheme, religious observance and traditional gender roles are frequently interpreted as either symptoms of internalized oppression or products of patriarchal control. As Leila Ahmed articulated in Women and Gender in Islam (1992), historical Islamic legal systems have often “institutionalized male privilege,” a claim that has echoed widely in feminist theory.

Yet, such analyses—however well-intentioned—have proven limited and reductive when confronted with women who derive agency from piety, not protest.

Saba Mahmood, in her ethnographic work Politics of Piety (2005), famously critiqued this tendency within feminist anthropology. Studying female participants in Egypt’s mosque movement, she observed:

“Agency is not only about resistance to norms, but the capacity to inhabit them ethically.”

Her work marked a turning point in feminist theory by questioning whether liberal secularism had the authority to define the contours of freedom for all women, especially those situated in postcolonial, religious, or non-Western traditions.

Yet despite such interventions, much of mainstream academic discourse continues to operate within a single-axis framework, in which religious conservatism is treated as inherently disempowering. This produces a false binary: either the Muslim woman is secular and empowered, or religious and oppressed.

6.2. Orthodox Muslim Women as Intellectual Subjects, Not Objects of Reform

What this discourse fails to engage is the epistemic agency of devout Muslim women who do not seek to reform Islam or reject its gender ethics, but to actualize them as a source of personal fulfilment, social harmony, and divine obedience. These women do not see their roles as wives, mothers, or homemakers as secondary or limiting, but as theocentric duties that elevate them spiritually.

In a roundtable published by The Maydan (2021), scholars such as Dr. Zainab Alwani, Dr. Asifa Quraishi-Landes, and Dr. Ayesha Chaudhry debated the need for a more pluralistic understanding of Muslim women’s experiences. Alwani emphasized that:

“The woman who is fully immersed in her family and does not engage in politics or public scholarship is not absent from the discourse; she simply speaks from a different place.”

This recognition is critical. Orthodox Muslim women must be understood not as peripheral to the debate on women’s rights, but as a new centre of it, redefining participation, freedom, and meaning within an Islamic worldview.

6.3. Toward Multiplicity: The Fallacy of the One-Size-Fits-All Empowerment Model

The imposition of a single model of “liberation” ignores the plurality of ethical subjectivities in Muslim societies. As Abdal Hakim Murad has written:

“Modernity’s mistake is in thinking that everyone must desire the same kind of freedom. But a woman who gives up her salary to serve her aging parents or who refuses public life for private piety is not less free—she is differently free.”(Travelling Home, 2020)

Similarly, Hamza Yusuf argues that the drive to homogenize empowerment models has had a colonial undertone:

“We are not free until we are free to choose the traditional, the sacred, and the unpopular. Not every woman wants to be a CEO. Some want to be saints.”(Zaytuna College Lecture, 2019)

Orthodox Muslim women often see themselves as liberated from the burdens of hyper-visibility, constant economic productivity, and societal pressure to conform to secular models of success. They choose quiet moral leadership, spiritual authority, and familial centrality as their avenues of impact. Their lives are not governed by exclusion, but by a higher calling.

7. Conclusion

This study has sought to reclaim the intellectual and theological space for orthodox Muslim women who live within the framework of Shari‘ah-based gender ethics—not as victims of tradition, but as moral agents and spiritual subjects. By foregrounding their voices, experiences, and epistemologies, the research has challenged the dominant narrative in both secular feminist and liberal academic discourse, which often portrays religiosity and domesticity as inherently restrictive or regressive.

Through a combination of textual analysis, engagement with classical Islamic scholarship, and reflections from contemporary Muslim thinkers—including male and female scholars like Imam al-Ghazālī, al-Shāfiʿī, Hamza Yusuf, Abdal Hakim Murad, Zainab Alwani, and Ingrid Mattson—this research has established that contentment in traditional roles is not only consistent with Islamic theology, but is also a deliberate and dignified choice for many women. These roles are not mere cultural relics or artefacts of patriarchy; they are rooted in a spiritual cosmology that regards the home as sacred, the family as central, and obedience to divine law as a form of liberation.

Key findings of this study include:

Orthodox Muslim women articulate their agency through devotion, moral intention (niyyah), and quiet leadership, grounded in ethical presence rather than social visibility.

Islamic legal and spiritual tradition affirms differentiated gender roles as a divine order, not a human hierarchy. These roles come with accountability, mutual compassion, and spiritual reward—not privilege or superiority.

The concept of zuhd serves as an ethical foundation for many women’s refusal of capitalist consumerism, modern hyper-productivity, and imposed secular feminist frameworks. Their model of freedom is God-centered, not market-centered.

Feminist critiques of Islam that fail to account for these voices often perpetuate epistemic erasure, enforcing a singular definition of empowerment that excludes non-Western, spiritually driven choices.

Contemporary Muslim women scholars are actively developing a framework of "theological feminism" or “ethical agency”, which neither apologizes for Islam nor mimics secular paradigms, but speaks from within the Qur’anic worldview.

In conclusion, the orthodox Muslim woman, far from being a passive subject, stands as a reminder that agency is not only about resisting norms—it is also about inhabiting sacred roles with love, conviction, and intentionality. Her life is not evidence of subjugation, but testimony to a deeper truth: that contentment can be found not in rebellion against divine roles, but in submission to them.

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