Support for feminism among highly religious Muslim citizens in the Arab region

Abstract

Public opinion studies argue that in Middle Eastern and North African countries, Muslims support gender equality less than non-Muslims. This overlooks the diversity in religion–feminism relations. Highly religious Muslims who support feminism are disregarded, even though in-depth studies have repeatedly pointed to their existence. Grounded in a structured anthology of qualitative studies on Muslim feminism, we provide the first ever large-scale analysis of support for Muslim feminism. Conducting latent class analyses on 64,000 Muslims in 51 Middle Eastern and North African contexts, we find that a substantial one in five Arab Muslims combines high attachment to Islam with support for feminism.