Fatima Seedat
South African scholar of Islam and gender
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fatima Seedat is a South African feminist, Islamic scholar and women's rights activist.[1] She is known for her scholarly work on gender and Islamic law,[2] and Islam and feminism.[3][4]
Fatima Seedat | |
|---|---|
| Education | McGill University (Ph.D) |
| Occupations | Islamic scholar, Senior lecturer, women's rights activist |
Career
Seedat researches gender and Islamic law, Islam and feminism, and Muslim masculinity.[5] She completed her PhD at McGill University,[1] and her dissertation focused on gender and legal theory.[2]: 94–95
She is Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town.[5] Seedat is also Programme Convenor of the University of Cape Town's Mphil in Islam, Gender, and Sexuality with Sa'diyya Shaikh.[6]
Seedat is one of the few Muslim women to act as an imam and deliver khutbahs.[7] She is co-editor of The Women's Khutbah Book: Contemporary Sermons on Spirituality and Justice from around the World with Sa'diyya Shaikh. Two of Seedat's khutbahs are featured, "Knowing in and through Difference" and "Not a Nikah Khutbah."[8]
Seedat is one of three female Muslim Marriage Officers in South Africa.[9]
Activism
Seedat was the parliamentary liaison for the South African Commission on Gender Equality. Seedat is the founder of Shura Yabafazi, a South African NGO that focuses on women in Muslim family law. Seedat has also worked with Equitas Human Rights Foundation, Women Living Under Muslim Laws, and UN Women Afghanistan.[1][9]
She has worked with the South African Muslim Personal Law Network, which works in conjunction with Musawah.[9] She has worked for more than 25 years with a variety of organisations to advocate for legal protections for women in Muslim marriages.[10]
Works
Books
- The Women's Khutbah Book: Contemporary Sermons on Spirituality and Justice from around the World (co-editor, Yale University Press, 2022)[11]
Book chapters
- "South African Feminists in Search of the Sacred" in Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa (2021, Wits University Press)[12]
- “Gender and the Study of Islamic Law: From Polemic to Ethics” in The Routledge Handbook on Gender and Islam (2020, Routledge)[13]
- "Intersections and Assemblages: South Africans Negotiating Privilege and Marginality through Freedom of Religion and Sexual Difference" in Freedom of Religion at Stake: Competing Claims Among Faith Traditions, States, and Persons (2019, Pickwick Publications)[14]
Academic papers
- "Between Boundaries, towards Decolonial Possibilities in a Feminist Classroom Holding a Space between the Qur'an and the Bible" in Religion and Theology (2020)
- "Queering the Study of Islam" in Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
- A women’s march without God (the Father) in The Immanent Frame (2018)
- Sexual economies of war and sexual technologies of the body: Militarised Muslim masculinity and the Islamist production of concubines for the caliphate in Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity (2017)
- "On Spiritual Subjects: Negotiations in Muslim Female Spirituality" in Journal of Gender and Religion in Africa (2016)
- Seedat (2013). "Islam, Feminism, and Islamic Feminism: Between Inadequacy and Inevitability". Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 29 (2): 25–45. doi:10.2979/jfemistudreli.29.2.25. S2CID 144930307.