Engaging Islamic sexual ethics: Intimacy, pleasure and sacrality

Abstract

This article explores the topic of Islamic sexual ethics through two distinct but interrelated epistemological modes. First, I briefly engage Islamic sexual ethics through the lens of Islamic feminism, which challenges dominant patriarchal imaginaries in order to facilitate liberatory and egalitarian readings. Second, drawing on qualitative research, this article presents a selection of South African Muslim women’s narratives on sexual intimacy, pleasure and sacrality. The main themes to be explored in this empirical section are the notion of sex as sacred and as deeply connected to both human and divine relationalities, the integration of religious piety with sexual interaction, as well as the ethical ideals of consensual and reciprocal sexual praxis. By highlighting women’s conceptualizations, negotiations and contestations of religious discourses on sexuality, this article illustrates the various ways in which Islamic sexual ethics is an indeterminate field, discursively produced and distinctively embodied in the South African context.