Gender Equality in Progressive Muslim Movements: Social Implications in the United States

The varied forms of progressive Islam all endeavor to realise social justice and equality through a critical engagement with Islamic sources and an inquiry into prevalent contemporary Islamic practices. An important feature of most progressive Islamic movements in North America is the focus on social equality and ultimately on gender parity. This paper seeks to investigate the ways in which social justice is achieved and enacted in target progressive Muslim communities and organisations. Subsequently the possibility of the instigation of social processes for ensuring human rights stemming from progressive ideologies will be examined. The research will be focused on two organisations: Muslims for Progressive Values and the New York Community of Progressives. Fieldwork will be carried out through online focus groups, observation and in-depth interviews in the United States. It is the intention of this research to investigate the role of gender issues in progressive Muslim movements and within other alternative Islamic practices/communities. The findings from this study will be used to evaluate the broader concerns of social justice, human rights and pluralism in these two progressive Muslim movements.