Feminism and theological encounter : a study of Mubadalah

Abstract

This research examines to the development of Mubadalah as a new perspective in Indonesian society. It emerges based on the personal critical thought of Faqihuddin Abdul Kodir in viewing the dynamics of interpretation model toward scriptures. Starting to be written in a personal blog, Mubadalah then inaugurated as a method used in KUPI I and officially launched in a published book in 2019. As a perspective, Mubadalah's notion is placing men and women in the equal position before God by trying to make both of them as a subject in texts. Within the principle of reciprocity, Mubadalah also tries to lay down on gender relationship issues. So, whenever one gender is not mentioned on the text, Mubadalah with its methodology investigates to find a general message behind the text then considers it is applicable for all genders. Using the combined methodology between literature review, in- depth interview and online questionnaire, this research argue that Mubadalah is an expression of a new Islamic perspective on gender equality in Indonesia which is standing between the Islamist and feminist. In Indonesian context, the new order regime has been intervening the women's life matters even into their household relationship. In this case, the Indonesian women ulama start to initiate reinterpreting Islamic texts that inspired by those global scholar's notions since 1990 in some communities like P3M, Rahima, FK3 and many more. They recognize to the importance of getting contextual interpretation on the scriptures which is suiting to the contemporary life of women. Those Indonesian women ulama also address that any kind of Islamic texts, including Qur'an, Hadith or the classical books or turath are open for dialogue. Indeed, this research aims to imply the fragmentation of religious authority among women ulama in the current situation in Indonesia. This research findings are clustered into three types: mubadalah both as perspective and movement, the divergent between mubadalah and previous discourses, and the reception of Indonesian people. First, as perspective or method, mubadalah bring out a new notion that both men and women should be conceptualized as subjects in a text by considering their special experiences. Second, mubadalah is quite different from the previous discourses especially in terms of methodology and the premises of reinterpreting texts. Third, Indonesian people accepting mubadalah not only as the gender relation principles but also as a paradigm which is able to be applied on global contexts. Finally, this research contributes to the development of Islamic feminism discourses in Indonesia and worthwhile for feminists in advocating women's contemporary problems.