MUSLIM WOMEN AND AGENCY: CHANGING RELIGIOUS PATTERNS A CASE STUDY OF TURKISH AND IRANIAN WOMEN

Abstract

We investigated the lives of lower-middle-class traditional-religious Muslim Women in the Middle East, with an emphasis on women in Ankara and Tehran. This article seeks to show the opposite aspects of current theories that show the concept of agency is typically useful to the upper middle classes, vice versa submission and obedience are characteristics typically used to describe the lower middle classes. In addition, Studies in the field of religion and women consider the emancipation of women from the structure of patriarchy and the challenge of the beliefs and interpretations of traditional Islam to belong to the upper class and elite of society. The study analyzed 50 women to show maybe their everyday life is silent, hidden, and slow but these women have been able to demonstrate their empowerment with low education and low economy. The results revealed that these women often did not think and act regarding social, cultural, traditional, and religious expectations as passive, and submissive personality but they looked for redistribution of their facilities and opportunities and also gain internal independence while they were conscious of what is going on in their current situation. Furthermore, they have not used religion as a tool to expand their empowerment opportunities, but they have challenged traditional Islam and the interpretations that have tried to suppress them with the help of patriarchy for long years. They have inadvertently opened the space for the entry of religious intellectualism thoughts into their practical everyday life. Indirect opposition to the laws that have a jurisprudential basis has caused women to go beyond the stage of resistance, and this opposition as an intangible struggles has been able to change aspects of their lives, and eventually, it shows a more concrete view of Islam's equality towards women.