Building Conceptual and Methodological Expertise for the Study of Gender, Agency and Authority in Islam

Project Information

BILQIS

Grant agreement ID: 101045152

DOI

10.3030/101045152

EC signature date 30 June 2022

Start date 1 September 2023

End date 31 August 2028

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 994 249,00

EU contribution

€ 1 994 249,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF GALWAY
Ireland

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BILQIS (Building Conceptual and Methodological Expertise for the Study of Gender, Agency and Authority in Islam)

Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2026-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

BILQIS emerges from a critical concern around Muslim women’s access to justice in Europe. The project engages in a comparative study of how Muslim women in Europe have navigated agency and authority over time from the long 19th century to the present day across diverse European peripheries. Project comparative work is organized with general reference to the Ottoman Balkans, new states in the post-Ottoman Balkans, and the contemporary states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden. BILQIS interrogates how the gendered development of Islamic family laws in each of these contexts can be better understood in terms agency and authority through studies of legal texts and socio=legal authorities.

Understanding of the gendered diversity within Muslim communities across Europe, as well as understanding of how family laws has been adjudicated within and with reference to Muslim majority contexts or Islamic oriented societies, remains largely underdeveloped in both theoretical and empirical terms. In order to secure access to a full spectrum of justice for Muslim women across instruments of shari’a and civil law, the contemporary stalemates around questions of legal pluralism, conflict of laws, interculturalism, and integration must be opened up by a new conceptual approach to Muslim women’s access to justice in Europe. BILQIS works to do this by gaining perspective on these dynamics at Europe’s peripheries where historical socio-legal developments and new socio-legal possibilities will be compared. These studies, in coordination with the development of a novel methodology to address gender gaps and power imbalances, will help reframe the androcentric complexes operative within Islamic leadership and state structures in Europe and will contribute new knowledge with regard to Islam and aspects of family law in line with historically informed and contextually relevant models that centre attention on the relationship between women, agency and authority.

BILQIS advances a new conceptual and methodological approach to aspects of family laws in Europe that leads to a new perspective on Muslim women’s agency in relation to socio-religious and socio-legal forms of authority. Through critical and comparative attention to overlooked peripheral spaces BILQIS establishes a research agenda around Muslim women’s access to justice in Europe. BILQIS aims to use the sum of its new knowledge to construct a new methodological framework to transform the study of the gender gaps and power imbalances that are related to social and legal questions of agency and authority with reference to Islam. This new methodology will also help direct the future of critical work on gender gaps across multiple disciplines, e.g. Islamic studies, socio-legal studies, women’s and gender studies, European studies, Near and Middle Eastern studies, cultural studies, religious studies, political philosophy, anthropology, as well as government and policy studies.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project researched and critically assessed the Ottoman-era fatwa collections. The project researched and critically assessed volumes of sharia court records from Sarajevo, Thessaloniki, Bulgaria, and Istanbul. Methodological approaches in this research combined critical legal history and feminist legal studies, which allowed the project to use textual analysis to pursue questions around gender and authority in archival contexts. The project also progressed extensive desk research on Balkan legal history, which enabled comparative legal analysis and identified a novel interpretation in the case of an inheritance ruling in Thessaloniki. Dissemination included presentations at the BRISMES Annual Conference 2025, Oxford Law in Context Workshop, Everyday Questions Workshop, Naples, and the BILQIS Ottoman History Seminar Series, Galway. Outputs will include one book chapter and two peer-reviewed journal articles.

The project advanced examination of how Muslim women have historically negotiated questions of authority and representation in the legal frameworks associated with Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Greece. The project researched and critically assessed governance transitions and transnational Islam in the contexts of Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Greece. The project conducted fieldwork in Greece and completed semi-structured interviews with women participants and institutional actors. The project undertook scoping work in Bulgaria and Bosnia. The project progressed desk research and textual analysis of 19th–20th century transitions in Bosnia and Bulgaria, focusing on institutional authority and transnational connections. Dissemination of project work has included a paper at BRISMES 2025 and planning for a project workshop in Sarajevo. Outputs will include two book chapters and one peer-reviewed article.

The project advanced work on contemporary access to justice with reference to Islamic family laws. Processes of authority formation, and transnational religious influences. The project conducted semi-structured interviews in Sweden across Uppsala, Lund, Malmö, and Stockholm, primarily with Afghan and Iranian women, activists, legal advisors, and academics. The project undertook critical analysis of relevant socio-legal texts. The project undertook scoping for fieldwork in Norway and established working relationships partnerships with NGOs. The project initiated working relations with community and academic actors in Norway. The project began fieldwork in Ireland and conducted scoping interviews with Muslim women, religious leaders, and policymakers. The project established working relationships NGOs in Ireland. Dissemination has included a Creative Methodology Workshop (Galway), an Uppsala Law School Seminar, a presentation to Malmö City Council Crises Centre, and a panel presentation at BRISMES 2025. Outputs will include two book chapters.

The project progressed desk research and critical textual analysis related to methodological innovation and cross-cutting thematic aspects of gender, agency, authority, and power. The project initiated semi-structured interviews with members of the European Council of Fatwa and Research (ECFR) and began critical study of ECFR publications; this has included gender-based analysis of collective ijtihad and transnational authority. Dissemination has included paper presentations at MESA 2024, ICCI 2024, and BRISMES 2025. Outputs will include one book chapter and one peer-reviewed journal article.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Project interview data and archival data collection and analysis both qualify as breakthrough achievements and have advanced the field of intercultural Islamic studies beyond the state of the art.

The project’s singular and primary focus on Muslim women’s access to justice in Europe has reframed this area of inquiry and established it as a normative, rather than peripheral, area of scientific and social focus in Europe. By placing Muslim women’s agency at the centre of all project methods of data collection and analysis BILQIS has been able to advance the first the first multi-century-multi-country comparative study of Islamic family law and related structures in Europe. This has been transformational for socio-legal studies, Islamic studies, and European studies.