Reconstruction of gender in Islamic thought: Iqbal's vision of equal opportunity

Previous research suggests that an uncritical import of a Western notion of equal employment opportunity to non-Western contexts, particularly to Muslim majority countries, may be problematic because of significant socio-cultural and historical differences. This article argues that one possible approach to developing a context-specific framework for equal opportunity in Muslim countries is through an in depth engagement with Islamic scholarship on social and religious reforms. For that purpose, the article revisits some of the ideas of Muhammad Iqbal, the renowned philosopher–poet of British India and the ‘national poet’ of Pakistan. The article offers an analysis of Iqbal's 1928 lectures in an attempt to understand the history of Muslim feminism in the Indian subcontinent and explore a possible future direction for equal opportunity in Pakistan.