Muslim women writers advanced the case for women’s rights long before feminism had a name
Asma Afsaruddin, Class of 1950 Herman B Wells Endowed Professor of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, delivered a keynote address at an international workshop in Istanbul examining the overlooked intellectual legacy of 19th-century women writers in the Muslim world. Her remarks were featured in Daily Sabah’s coverage of the two-day gathering.
Daily Sabah is an English-language daily newspaper published in Istanbul. Launched in 2014 as the English-language edition of the Turkish Daily Sabah and owned by Turkuvaz Media Group, it is among Türkiye’s most widely read English-language news outlets, reporting on Turkish, regional, and international affairs for readers around the world.
The workshop, “KADEM International Workshop Series III: 19th Century Women Writers in the Muslim World,” was organized by the Women and Democracy Foundation (KADEM) in cooperation with the University of Freiburg, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf University, and Tbilisi State University. It brought together scholars from around the world to study the lives and thought of women whose newspaper articles, journals, novels, and essays shaped debates on education, law, religion, justice, and social reform in regions stretching from the Ottoman Empire and Egypt to Iran, India, Indonesia, West Africa, Azerbaijan, and Victorian Britain.
In her keynote, Afsaruddin argued that advocacy for women’s rights in the Muslim world has a far longer history than is often recognized, tracing its origins to 19th-century Muslim women who challenged social restrictions while remaining firmly rooted in Islamic thought and values. The absence of the modern term “feminism” in the 19th century, she said, did not mean that the ideas associated with women’s rights were absent. Drawing on the concept of “invisible feminism,” she described women who were already producing intellectual and literary work advocating education, justice, and greater participation in public life decades before such movements were formally named. Their writing, she said, held that educating women was essential “not only for individual advancement but also for strengthening families” and contributing to national development.
Afsaruddin is a leading scholar of Islamic religious and political thought, Qur’anic hermeneutics, and gender in Islam, and the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Women (Oxford University Press, 2023). She also holds appointments as an adjunct professor in religious studies and an affiliated professor in gender studies at Indiana University, and she is a Trustees Teaching Award recipient known for her mentorship of undergraduate and graduate students.
Her participation in the Istanbul workshop reflects the Hamilton Lugar School’s commitment to research that crosses borders and disciplines, and to preparing students to engage the world with historical depth and cultural fluency. Students in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures study Islamic thought, Middle Eastern history, and gender with faculty whose scholarship shapes international conversations.
Read the full story in Daily Sabah, or visit Afsaruddin’s faculty profile to learn more about her research and teaching.