Maroc: vers un féminisme islamique d'Etat

In 2003-2004, the authorities’ initiatives in favor of greater gender equality were crowned by the reform of the family code and that of the religious sphere in the name of the 'egalitarian spirit of Islam and [the] universal principles of human rights'. These reforms were part of the larger framework of the Moroccan 'process of democratization' in which two trajectories of change interacted: the effort at greater political openness launched by the Moroccan monarchy in the 1990s and a trend towards institutionalizing religious affairs under state patronage that was announced following the 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca. In an effort to take account of Islamist and feminist discourses concerning women’s rights, the authorities developed projects which sought to demonstrate their respective compatibility with Islam. The recruitment of women in state religious institutions (in particular, as preachers in mosques and theologians in the ulema councils) began in 2006; they are expected to promote a 'moderate Moroccan Islam'. The theme of the woman in Islam has become a site of conflict between the authorities, Islamists and liberal feminists. Yet the question is whether the authorities’ projects to feminize religion and political life really create spaces in which the autonomous action of women (in the religious domain or that of citizenship) can blossom or whether these formulae imposed from above do not use women more as symbols than as agents of chang