1965 -
Egyptian political scientist and Islamic thinker and activist.
Heba Rauf Ezzat (also Hiba Raʾuf Izzat) was educated in German Catholic schools and is at the point of receiving a Ph.D. in political science from Cairo University. Rauf has become a prominent spokesperson on gender issues in Egypt and on the Internet. From 1992 to 1997 she wrote a weekly column, "Women's Voice," for al-Shaʿb, the Islamist-leaning newspaper of the Egyptian Labor Party. She supports change from within to counter what she sees as secularization of the (Muslim) family. Conceptualizing the Muslim family as outside of history, she criticizes Western feminists for analyzing it within the framework of the rise of bourgeois and patriarchal social structures. Yet she gives more centrality to gender than do many Islamic activists, such as her mentors, Zaynab al-Ghazali and Safinaz Kazim. Arguing from central texts of Islamic jurisprudence, she finds strong precedent for women's participation as leaders in public life as long as they are Islamically qualified. Although knowledgeable about Western political philosophy, in her polemics Rauf nevertheless expresses common misperceptions about European and American society. She tends to support monolithic notions of "Islamic" and "Western" societies as inevitably dichotomized. She rejects the label of "feminist" and sees feminism as a diversionary and unnecessary practice, irrelevant to those who work within an Islamic framework.
Bibliography
Rauf Ezzat, Heba. "Women and the Interpretation of Islamic Sources." In Islam 21. Available at http://www.islam21.net/pages/keyissues/key2-6.htm.
Gawhary, Karim, el-. "An Interview with Heba Raʾuf Ezzat." Middle East Report 191 (Nov. - Dec. 1994): 26 - 27.
Karam, Azza. Women, Islamisms and the State: Contemporary Feminisms in Egypt. London: Macmillan, 1998.
— MARILYN BOOTH
