Amin’s feminist plea actually substituted Western for Islamic patriarchy.

Evidence

In a powerful critique of that work, Leila Ahmed has argued that “In calling for women’s liberation the thoroughly patriarchal Amin was in fact calling for the transformation of Muslim society along the lines of the Western model and for the substitution of the garb of Islamic-style male dominance by that of Western-style male dominance. Under the guise of a plea for a ‘liberation’ of woman, then, he conducted an attack that in its fundamentals reproduced the colonizer’s attack on native culture and society.” It was designed, in other words, to help eradicate bad habits among the natives. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1119

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that a ‘liberation’ discourse can merely swap one patriarchal form for another, while reproducing the colonizer’s civilizing attack, is dense and genuinely paradigm-shifting for how we read reform movements.
• XREF: Strongly echoes the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ article — moral-panic claims about dress as mask for identity/political signaling.
• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ article: the veil/seclusion debate is another cross-cultural case where dress critique serves class/identity/political ends rather than genuine liberation.