Between Divine Command and Political Choice: Islamic Ukhuwwah versus Secular Feminist Sisterhood - A Critical Comparative Analysis with Survey Evidence from Muslim Women in Pakistan

Abstract

Contemporary feminist discourse promotes 'sisterhood' as the foundational expression of women's solidarity. Rooted in second-wave feminism, this concept has, however, attracted sustained scholarly critique for its structural failures: its exclusion of Muslim, Black, and working-class women; its fragility when political interests diverge; and its increasingly contested definitional boundaries. Recent scholarship has exposed what Taher and Zoghlami (2025) term 'the epistemic failures of white liberal feminism' in relation to Muslim women, yet a robust theological alternative has remained underdeveloped in the comparative literature. This study addresses that gap by undertaking a critical, comparative analysis of Islamic Ukhuwwah and secular feminist sisterhood, grounded in primary Qur'anic and Prophetic sources and validated through empirical survey data from 120 Muslim women across Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad). Employing a mixed-methods design — textual analysis of the Qur'an (Al-Hujurat 49:10, 49:13; Al-Tawbah 9:71; Al-Hashr 59:9), classical tafsir (Ibn Kathir, al-Nawawi, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani), and a structured Likert-scale questionnaire — the study demonstrates that Islamic Ukhuwwah constitutes a theologically grounded, universally inclusive, and morally binding solidarity framework that systematically overcomes the structural limitations of secular sisterhood. Survey findings indicate that 91.7% of respondents feel a religious obligation toward fellow Muslim women, 84.2% identify more strongly with Ukhuwwah than with secular sisterhood, and 78.3% perceive secular sisterhood as structurally exclusionary. The study contributes to Islamic feminist scholarship, Muslim women's studies, and gender theory in Muslim-majority contexts, and calls for the recentring of Islamic concepts in transnational gender discourse.

Keywords: Ukhuwwah, Sisterhood, Islamic feminism, Muslim women, Feminist solidarity, Qur'anic ethics, Pakistan, Gender theory

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21488778