Journal of Advances in Developmental Research

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2026

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Beyond the Secular Gaze: Challenging Western Feminist Paradigms in Muslim Women's Subjectivity

Author(s) Dr. Mohammed Ghouse
Country India
Abstract This paper is a critical review of the historical construction and interpretation of the subjectivity of Muslim women in the Western feminist paradigms using a secularist approach, and in the process, excludes other kinds of agency and self-definitiveness. Based on the postcolonial feminist theory, as well as the radical work of such theorists as Saba Mahmood, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, and Lila Abu-Lughod, this paper challenges the epistemological assumptions of liberal feminist theories in considering Muslim women as subjects of depersonalized oppression that should be liberated. This paper proves that Muslim women in culturally specific ways exercise agency through the analysis of the movements of Islamic feminism and empirical evidence on educational attainment and political representation of Muslim women, which tend to dispel Western ideas of freedom and independence. The study shows the effect of the secular gaze in terms of ongoing colonial hierarchies by rejecting the subjectivity of religion as false consciousness, and yet it remains blind to the multiple voices and experiences of Muslim women themselves. This paper will contend that religion, gender, and postcolonial politics intersect in such a way that feminist praxis should be viewed and analyzed more closely by taking into consideration cultural plurality and acknowledging that there are different ways to empower women other than the secular approaches of the West.
Keywords Muslim women, Islamic feminism, postcolonial feminism, secular feminism, subjectivity, agency, Western feminism, religious agency, gender equality.
Published In Volume 17, Issue 1, January-June 2026
Published On 2026-03-22
Cite This Beyond the Secular Gaze: Challenging Western Feminist Paradigms in Muslim Women's Subjectivity - Dr. Mohammed Ghouse - IJAIDR Volume 17, Issue 1, January-June 2026. DOI 10.71097/IJAIDR.v17.i1.1766
DOI https://doi.org/10.71097/IJAIDR.v17.i1.1766
Short DOI https://doi.org/hbtd92
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