이슬람법과 젠더(Gender)에 관한 연구 - 혼인과 이혼을 중심으로-

Since the 20th century, while all Islamic countries have gone through a secularization process to varying degrees, they tried to find out their identity as distinct from Western countries in Islamic law, particularly the Islamic family law. Even the countries that introduced Western legal system tried to apply Ijtihad, namely, the way to reinterpret traditional Islamic laws, in the field of family law. So even in modern times, Islamic law - especially the family law - exercises great influence on gender relations in Islamic society. From the liberal and egalitarian view, Islamic family law is undoubtedly a gender-discriminating unequal law. Islamic law with unequal gender perspective has been a target of criticism and reformation in the Islamic world as well as in the western world. Nevertheless, reformers and even feminists in most of the Islamic world accept Islamic law as God’s law, in other words, as fate. All they could do was to focus on new interpretation of God’s law through Ijtihad as Ulama did in the past. Islamic law that was declared to be brought to completion in the 10th century still dominates legal thinking and the legal system in the field of Islamic family law. Studying gender relations that appear in classical Islamic law can be an essential basis in understanding family law and gender relations in the Islamic world today. I did a research on how marriage and divorce, which are the very foundation of gender relations, are handled in classical Islamic law. I also analyzed, within the standard of liberal egalitarianism, about how Islamic law prescribes gender relations in marriage and divorce; their limitation, discrimination, inequality, and suppression; and the types of discrimination. Meanwhile, I tried to find out some means to do away with unequal gender relations in Islamic family law. That could be a starting point for a follow-up study that will attempt to ascertain how classical Islamic law is adapted in the contemporary family laws of each Islamic country.