An Evolutionary Revolution: Saudi Women Leading Change from within under the Auspices of the Islamic Holy Scriptures

Abstract This article focuses on the multi-faceted struggle of Saudi women that began in the 1990s and on the strategies they adopted in this struggle. This struggle is unique in that these Saudi activists chose to conduct their struggle within the framework of the sharīʿa , demonstrating proficiency in the holy texts which they acquired both in systematic formal study and in informal study circles, thereby having the knowledge to base their claims within the context of these texts. The religious knowledge that they demonstrate and the choice of gender ijtihād validate and legitimize Saudi women’s struggle and force both the political and the religious establishments to respond to them. The article analyzes their achievements as well as their failures as part of a discourse focusing on the intersection between religion, gender and politics. This discourse deals, among other things, with the entry of women who self-define as religious in public spaces. These religious women, equipped with religious knowledge, adopt their own hermeneutic strategies towards the canonical sacred texts and criticize the hegemonic interpretation. They are agents of change who challenge dichotomies between reform and revolution, feminism and religion and modernity and tradition. This is certainly a Sisyphean process. Therefore, the definition, “evolutionary revolution”, suits this process led by Saudi women.