“The Muslim Question” and Muslim Women Talking Back

Abstract

In this article, I draw on critical investigations of gendered, racialised and sexualised discourses on Islam and Muslim minorities in Western Europe to explore two recent instances of Muslim female intellectuals and artists responding to what has been dubbed “the Muslim question”. I shall show that Muslim women’s counter-voices are multilayered, conveyed through various means, and context-dependent, as well as dependent on intersectional marginalised positionalities. My goal is to theoretically rethink the feminist methodology of ‘talking back’ on the basis of the complex ways in which Muslim women establish modes of critique.