TTEASK036U Islamic Feminism in Europe

Volume 2024/2025
Education

The course is planned with physical attendance.

Bachelor students enrol: TTEASK036U

Master's students enrol: TTEKASK36U

Content

Within the last decade Islamic feminists have opened mosques with female and/or LGBTQ+ imams in most western European countries. Simultaneously, Muslim youth have organized in civil rights organizations that fight discrimination, racism, and Islamophobia, and every year Muslim authors publish their debut novel or poem collection while other Muslim artists produce Islamic pop-music – a genre that emerged at the turn of the millennium, when the first large Islamic pop record company took off.

Other young Muslim women isolate from society or find ways of living in piousness. A small minority of these women migrate to join terrorist organizations abroad. Although such women are often described as brainwashed, the process of radicalization is one in which women show a high degree of agency, and they often experience it as empowering – not unlike how women feel empowered when they take to the pulpit as imams. Indeed, some female imams are prior Salafis.

Although this course focuses on Islamic and Muslim feminisms (in the plural) it also cover women’s experiences with radical Islam, masculinities, LGBTQ+ Islam, and similar phenomena. The course consists of five modules. In module 1 we study Muslim migration to Denmark and explore Islam in Copenhagen through a field study in which students will do photo-journalism. In module 2, the focus is on female and LGBTQ+ imams in Europe, and in module 3 we read and listen to artistic productions by Muslim minority women and men in the form of novels, poetry and music. As part of this module students will be required to do a semi-structured interview with either a Muslim or a non-Muslim on private and public perceptions of Islam. Modul 4 investigates current Muslim civil rights organizations, and module 5 focus on Muslim female piousness.

Abu-Lughod, Lila. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Ackfeldt, Anders (2024). Islamic Themes in US Hip-Hop Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Aidi, Hisham D. Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture. New York: Vintage Books, 2014.

Bøe, Marianne Hafnor. "Halal Dating and Norwegian Youth Culture." Journal of Muslims in Europe 7, no. 3 (2018): 265-82.

Brinkman, Svend, and Steinar Kvale. Interviews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2015.

Ermers, Robert. "Apostasy in Terms of Moral Deviance." In Religiously Exclusive, Socially Inclusive? A Religious Response, edited by Bernhard Reitsma and Erika van Nes-Visscher. Amsterdam: Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023.

Inge, Anabel. The Making of a Salafi Muslim Woman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Jaraba, Mahmoud. "The Practice of Khulʿ in Germany: Pragmatism Versus Conservativism." Islamic Law and Society 26, no. 1-2 (2019): 83-110.

Lamrabet, Asma. Women in the Qur’an: An Emancipatory Reading. Markfield: Square View, 2016.

Leeuwen, Theo van. Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge, 2005.

Mattu, Ayesha, and Nura Maznavi. Love, Inshallah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. New York: Soft Skull Press, 2012.

Nassri, Lamies. "Islamophobia in Denmark: National Report 2022." In European Islamophobia Report 2022, edited by Enes Bayraklı and Farid Hafez. Vienna: Leopold Weiss Institute, 2023.

Otterbeck, Jonas. The Awakening of Islamic Pop Music. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.

Otterbeck, Jonas. "Experiencing Islam: Narratives About Faith by Young Adult Muslims in Malmö and Copenhagen." In Everyday Lived Islam in Europe, edited by Nathal M. Dessing, Nadia Jeldtoft, Jørgen S. Nielsen and Linda Woodhead. London: Routledge, 2016.

Petersen, Jesper. The Islamic Juridical Vacuum: An Ethnographic Study of the Emergence and Institutionalization of Parallel Legal Institutions in Denmark. Leiden: Brill, 2025.

Petersen, Jesper. The Making of a Mosque with Female Imams: Serendipities in the Production of Danish Islams. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

Petersen, Jesper. "Media and the Female Imam." Religions 10, no. 3 (2019): 159-72.

Petersen, Jesper. "Pop-up Mosques, Social Media Adhan, and the Making of Female and Lgbtq-Inclusive Imams." Journal of Muslims in Europe 8, no. 2 (2019): 178-96.

Petersen, Jesper, and Anders Ackfeldt. "The Case for Studying Non-Muslim Islams." Method & Theory in the study of religion 35, no. 2-3 (2023): 241-59.

Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials. 4th ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.

The course is planned with physical attendance.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 28
  • Preparation
  • 122
  • Exam Preparation
  • 150
  • Exam
  • 120
  • Total
  • 420
Written
Individual
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Credit
15 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Type of assessment details
Undergraduate requirements (bachelor students):

Requirement to pass the course for undergraduate students (bachelor students) are: a) A syllabus of 1,200-1,500 pages. The syllabus includes both the course literature covered in connection with the course and the assignment literature on which the written homework assignment is based, which the student finds and has approved by the teacher. The syllabus (course and assignment literature combined) may not exceed 1,500 pages. b) Active participation (at least 75% of the hours attended documented by protocol) and preparation of a written home assignment with a scope of 24,000-28,800 characters, i.e., 10-12 pages, based on 600-800 pages of literature as agreed with the course teacher. The assignment is assessed by the teacher. The assessment is based on the 7-point grading scale.

Graduate requirements (candidate/master students):

Requirement to pass the course for graduate students (candidate/master students) are: a) A syllabus of 1,200-1,500 pages. The syllabus includes both the course literature covered in connection with the teaching and the assignment literature on which the written homework assignment is based, which the student finds and has approved by the teacher. The syllabus (course and assignment literature combined) may not exceed 1,500 pages. b) Active participation (at least 75% of the hours attended documented by protocol) and preparation of a written home assignment with a scope of 36,000-48,000 characters, i.e., 15-20 pages, based on 800-1,000 pages of literature as agreed with the teacher. The assignment is assessed by the teacher. The assessment is based on the 7-point grading scale.
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Exam period

Summer Exam