Main Currents of Islam
Now the methods used in my research will be discussed, including the compar ative method, the documentary research method, and expert interviews, which were used in the empirical section of the research.
The comparative method
This research uses the comparative method to compare the perspectives of the main currents of Islamic thought on women’s rights and gender equality. Com parison is a fundamental tool in scientific approaches and analysis. It is applied to the intersocietal as well as the intrasocietal. One definition by Pennings (2006) looks at comparative social research in two ways. One is at “the level of politi cal and social systems based on its supposed core subject,” and another is by “the means of descriptive features that claim to enhance knowledge about polit ical and social phenomena as a process” (Pennings 2006: 19–20).
The comparative method in the first sense can be traced to two founding cre ators of Sociology, Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) and Max Weber (1864–1920), who conducted comparative analysis in their work. Both these scholars claim that the comparative method is consistent with the nature of sociological inquiry. How ever, they differ from one another in their strategy, epistemology and explanation of conducting the comparative analysis (Smelser 2013). Ragin (1989) employs the comparative method to verify the relationship between various phenomena and also “to determine the different combinations of conditions with specific out comes or processes” (Ragin 1989: 14). It is applied to the exploration of similar ities and differences of two or more cases regarding a specific phenomenon, with the aim of achieving a typology towards a better understanding and explanation of the cases. This method also helps to understand and explain divergent forma tions of a single phenomenon and reveal variations within what is presumed to be a united and undifferentiated category of units (Azarian 2011: 118).
In this research project, this method helps to investigate different interpreta tions of Islam and the origin of such diversities. The various currents of Islamic thought – to be discussed in this book – are classified into three prominent thought streams based on the compatibility of Islamic jurisprudential laws, with a time and space index, as well as the relationship between human reason and
Islamic jurisprudential laws. If viewed on a spectrum, one end would be the fun damentalists and the other the seculars, with reformists standing in the middle. Therefore, the three main streams of thought and their perspectives on women’s rights shall be compared in order to arrive at an understanding of the relation ship between various interpretations of Islam and women’s right and gender equality.
In comparative research, it is essential to develop a theoretical perspective in order to systematically relate the research question to possible research designs, rather than simply gathering a lot of information (Pennings 2006: 23). There fore, the three main currents of Islamic thought will be compared through a the oretical model that is illustrated in the chapter on theoretical framework.
The documentary research method
This study uses the documentary research method, which involves the analysis of literature that contains information about the research subject (Mogalakwe 2006: 221). The documents are divided into two general categories: primary doc uments, which are those written by scholars of the main three streams of Islam ic thought, and secondary publications which are previous research works on the relationship of Islam and gender equality, and especially include studies on the views of prominent representatives from each stream of Islamic thought. This study is confined to investigating the representatives’ opinions of the main currents of Islamic thought in Iran after the revolution 1979, which is a Shiite Islamic country, in order to gain an integrated perception.
Core aspects of expert interviews
Studying primary documents written by scholars of the main three streams of Islamic thought shows that they do not evince constant standpoints over time. In other words, every scholar has various phases of thought in his life. In some cases there are relatively opposite ideas presented in various publications by an individual scholar. To understand the present positions of these currents, expert interviews were carried out. The expert interview is applied based on the inter pretive paradigm of qualitative studies which refer to “those traditions in social research that are rooted in hermeneutic, phenomenological or interactionist ap proaches and which see as their main task the interpretations and understanding of text” (Klar and Opitz 1997: 342).
In sociology, the interpretive paradigm views social interaction as an inter pretative process. This means “the definitions of situations and actions are not explicitly or implicitly assumed to be settled once and for all by literal applica tion of a preexisting culturally established system of symbols” (Wilson 1970: 702); rather, they are open to redefinition by the participants in an interaction
on a specific occasion. Therefore, the participants produce a social world of which they are themselves a part. The normative paradigm, in contrast to the in terpretive, assumes that social interaction is governed primarily by rules and norms (Farrington and Murray 2014: 28). In this regard, interpretive qualitative research is a form of inquiry in which researchers have their own interpretation of what they see, hear, and understand, which can be completely different from the interpretation of their readers as well as the participants of the study (Cre swell 2009: 176) Accordingly, the categorizing of a stream of thought or a rep resentative based on certain indicators may be different from what that group or representative define for themselves.
The interview methodology
This study employs the expert interview to collect updated information, com plementing insights coming from applying other methods such as a literature re view. Bogner and Menz (2009) distinguish this sort of interview as the system-
atizing expert interview in their threefold typology of expert interviews. Here the expert interview is not used singularly, but is seen as a complementary meth od. This is referred to as ‘triangulation’ (Flick 2014: 230). Furthermore, expert interviews in this research project can be considered as theorygenerating, as suggested by Bogner and Menz in their typology, since they help develop theo ries on the insights of different streams of Islamic thought, “from reconstruct ing the knowledge of various experts” (ibid. 228)
In the course of this study, semistructured expert interviews with openend ed questions were conducted with representatives of the three streams of Islam ic thought. Since all representatives or experts were requested to express their views about the same themes, the results obtained through these semistructured interviews can be compared with each other (Nohl 2012). Consequently, such comparison can lead to an understanding of the current debate on gender equal ity in mainstream Islamic thought.
The interview sample
The sampling in this study follows a specific, predetermined criterion (Przybor ski and WohlrabSahr 2014: 182). The streams of Islamic thought to be discussed here are categorized as: Fundamentalist, Reformist and Secularist. Such a cate gorization is based on each group’s perspectives on the changeability of Islam ic jurisprudential laws in a time and space index as well as the independence of human reason from revelation. If plotted on a spectrum, extreme fundamental ists would be on one end while extreme seculars will be on the other. Reform ists are situated in the middle. Using the term secular to describe one stream of Islamic thought does not mean that they are antireligious or irreligious, but that they try to settle “rules about the ‘proper place’ of religion without rejecting re ligion as such” (Burchardt et al. 2012: 6).
Since the researcher is a woman and the subject of research is women’s rights in Islam, conducting an interview with representatives of extreme fundamental ism was not possible. Instead, the representatives of fundamentalistoriented thought who were interviewed were those who stand close to reformists on the spectrum of Islamic thought. There were three informants coming from this par ticular group. Some of the interview partners are anonymized because of possi ble political implications. The first interview partner, “A” did not agree to a di rect interview but had asked his son to receive the questions and to deliver his answers. The other two representatives of this group – “B” and “C” – were in terviewed directly in Teheran and Qom.
“D”, “E”, and “F” were interviewed as representatives of the reformistori ented thought stream. They are recognized as the most significant and influen tial representatives and intellectual leaders of reformist thought in Iran. Since “D” lived in the United States at the time of the interview, the interview was conducted through Skype, while the other two interviews were conducted in Bonn, Germany. In the third group representing the seculars, Mojtahed Shabe stari and Mostafa Malekian were interviewed in Tehran. These men are recog nized as the only prominent representatives of the religious secular view in Iran. All eight interviews, with an average duration of 120 minutes, were conducted from January – June 2011.
These representatives were chosen as informants for this study since they are recognized socially as experts in this context (Bogner and Menz 2005: 61, 98). All of the experts in this study are male, since there was no female socially iden tified as an expert in Islamic theology. The female informants within the reform ist or secular orientation were identified as experts in Women’s Studies in Islam rather than experts in Islamic theology.
In an expert interview, the experts are considered as representatives of a group rather than as a ‘whole’ or singular person (Person als Ganzes; die gesamte Per-
son) (Meuser & Nagel 2005: 72), and their arguments for a certain subject rep resent the view of this group on that subject. However, each expert’s life expe rience and his knowledge of philosophy and the history of theology, as well as debates on global issues such as human rights, justice, etc. have influenced their insights and expert knowledge, which are discussed in this study.
Creating structure and guidelines for interviews using the main questions
The structure of all the interviews was determined by specific main questions that follow certain issues of interest for the study. This facilitates a systematic order of information that allows the researcher to make comparisons between interviews (Kruse 2014: 213). Guidelines relate theoretical considerations to qualitative methods of collecting data. Though the guidelines could be drawn from the theoretical framework, they are not themselves theoretical questions; rather they are oriented to the research field and are intended for acquiring the necessary information needed to answer the research questions (Gläser and Lau
del 2009: 90–91). Therefore, the guidelines establish a connection between the theoretical frameworks that inform the concepts that are used to define the re search problem (Silverman 2010: 104), and are used in the empirical part of the research to gain answers to the research questions.
While there are guide questions, the interviewee is allowed to explain in more detail and in greater depth other aspects of the subject matter that are not nec essarily mentioned in the guidelines. As such, the main points raised by the in terviewee were followed with ‘immanent questions’ (Helfferich 2011: 105) aimed at further elaboration of that point. This resulted in a narration that high lighted more aspects rather than provided a direct answer to a specific question. Therefore, the guidelines were not strictly followed, although all points men tioned in the guidelines were discussed.
The guide questions were designed based on the “Sammeln, Prüfung, Sortie-
ren, Subsumieren”, more commonly known as the SPSSMethod, developed by Helfferich (2011: 182–189). The first step, Sammeln refers to collecting ques tions and brainstorming. In the second step, Prüfung means verifying questions based on their relevance to gaining proper information. Then, in the next step,
Sortieren refers to sorting the questions according to their content. In the last step, Subsumieren, the verified and sorted questions are subsumed into the guide lines. The resulting guidelines were reviewed by a cleric who was familiar with religious terms, in order to make sure that the concepts used in the guidelines would be similarly understood by the interviewees.
Designing the main interview questions
The suggested theoretical model in Chapter Two presented an ideal type of mod ern society in which there is a dialectical relationship between individual and structure, or more precisely between human reason and religion as established by revelation. The model also proposed justice to be understood as equal access to rules and resources, regardless of gender in economic, political, and cultural dimensions, as well as in family life. Justice further means adherence and com mitment to cosmopolitan norms, as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
According to the theoretical model in this study, the guidelines for the expert interviews are categorized into three groups. The first group deals with the con cept of the individual, including man and woman, and aims to gain the infor mant’s perspective on the equality of men and women in religious doctrine as a representative of his respective stream of Islamic thought; for example, in cre ation as well as in nature and biology. This group of guidelines also investigates the role of human reason in the relationship between the human being and his creator, as well as with other individuals in society. The concept of rights is dis cussed in this section to ascertain the respondent’s view on a human being’s identity as rightsbearer or obligationholder to God. Accordingly, it discusses
the meaning of rights and its changeability, as well as the legitimacy of rights – whether rights are defined based on revelation or human reason, and ultimately whether they are defined based on gender. The second group of guidelines re fers to religion as structure. The definition of religion and the approach to the Quran as the resource of revelation shall be debated here. The third group of guidelines investigates the interviewee’s perspective on the UDHR and CEDAW and their acceptability in Islam. The last guideline, about the current legal in structions related to women’s rights in Iran as Islamic laws, tries to achieve an understanding of different currents of thought on equal access related to gender, rules and resources in different realms of life – economic, politic, cultural and family.
The guidelines:
The three groups of guidelines applied in the research are as following:
Individual agency
• What is the role of gender in defining the equality of men and women in the Islamic doctrine?
• What is the role of human reason in the relationship between human beings and God as well as society
• What is the role of human reason in defining human rights? Are human rights constant or changeable?
• How do differences between genders effect how their respective rights are de fined?
Structure
• What is the place of Islamic law and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) in your defi nition of religion?
• Is the Quran a direct word from God or is it an outcome from the Prophet’s experience (Interpretation)?
UDHR and CEDAW as the criteria for global norms of justice and human dignity
• Can the UDHR provide a foundation for justice and human dignity? • Can the CEDAW provide a basis for gender justice?
• Can the current legal instructions related to women’s rights provide justice in society? How do you evaluate the laws related to women’s rights in the eco nomic dimension (such as right to work, inheritance, etc.), political dimension (executive tasks such as appointing women as judges or president, etc.), cul tural dimension (such as women’s veiling, etc.) , and in the family (such as polygamy, right to divorce, temporary marriage, etc.)?
The interview analysis
The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Although all interviews were tran scribed verbatim in Persian, only the relevant passages for the interview guide line questions were translated verbatim in English. Nonverbal expressions (such as laughing, harrumphing, coughing, and stammering) were transcribed, only if they changed the meaning of a statement (Gläser and Laudel 2009: 194).
To analyze the interviews, ‘thematic evaluation’ (Kruse 2014: 206) was ap plied. The focus of evaluation is in reference to the themes on which guide ques tions are based. Therefore transcribed interviews were categorized and coded based on concepts determined by the guide questions. This means categories and codes were predetermined and derived from the guidelines, which in turn were deduced from the theoretical framework as well as research questions, and the data from interviews were fitted to them. As Creswell (2009) points out, while “the traditional approach in social sciences is to allow the codes to emerge during the data analysis”, for this study it was helpful to have “a larger theoret ical perspective on the research” (Creswell 2009: 187). In this case, ‘thematic comparison’ (Flick 2014: 237) using the codes and categories leads to a theo retical comparison between interviews in order to gain an “interpretation of the larger meaning of data” (Creswell 2009: 189), as well as provide comparabili ty of the current ideas of interviewees with their views mentioned in their pub lications. Furthermore, interviews within the same group were compared to get more detail about the views of the Islamic mainstream. This facilitates a presen tation of differences and similarities among perceptions of various currents of thought in Islam.
Methodological norms and qualitative research
There are three classical criteria to assess the procedure and results of research, namely reliability, validity, and objectivity. However, some writers prefer to use different terminologies for such criteria in qualitative research. For instance, Guba suggests four criteria to assess trustworthiness in a qualitative study: cred ibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability, which are used in this research.
Credibility refers to an internal validity which ensures that the study mea
sures what it is actually intended to measure. Credibility can be gained through a technique such as triangulation (Guba 1981: 85), which means taking differ ent perspectives on the issue under study by using several methods, or several theoretical approaches, as well as combining different sorts of data about theo retical perspectives, which are then applied to the data (Flick 2014: 184). In this study, the data and information about various streams of Islamic thought are ob tained from documents and a literature review, providing a basis and background for the research issue. This is complemented by expert interviews to explain and verify particular details in the current attitudes and outlooks of the streams of thought in Islam.
Furthermore, the guideline questions for the expert interviews were discussed among peers and academic colleagues, to investigate and reanalyze the relation between theoretical concepts mentioned in the guidelines drawn from the theo retical framework, in order to gain data correctly. In this process, the research er had the opportunity to widen her vision by gaining constructive ideas and in terpretations from peers and academics. Guba considers such meetings and sessions as peer debriefing, which according to him is another method of ob taining credibility (Guba 1981: 85).
Transferability refers to external validity or generalizability, which shows to
what extent the findings of one study are generalizable to other situations. While some qualitative researchers consider findings as specific to the particular cir cumstances of the study and not applicable to other situations, other researchers