Scriptural rulings on gender segregation admit flexibility where absolute prohibition creates hardship

Evidence

Here Hajja Faiza vvent through a long list of examples from Muhammed’s and his Companions’ lives that illustrated their interactions with women. An.. ticipating the audience’s response to her argument, she said, “Of course we say that these were very pious people [mittaq in] and we are not like them, but these examples also show that ikhtilat is permitted [j �iz] … . Yes, there are limits [�udud] to and etiquettes for interaction between women and men. But if we were to say that there is no interaction between men and women, this would make for great hardship [mashaqqa shadzda] . God did not order us to do this, so why say He did?” — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 768

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates the liberal-feminist and Islamophobic picture of gender segregation as an inflexible, uniform Islamic doctrine; connects to the vault’s Islamophobia cluster which frames Muslim practice monolithically.
• SEED: Essay angle: intra-Muslim hermeneutic debate over gender interaction undercuts both Western caricatures of ‘the’ Islamic view and liberal-feminist assumptions that reform must come from outside tradition.