Islam has its own morals and jurisprudence grounded in a...

Islam has its own morals and jurisprudence grounded in a metaphysics that has been delineated through the course of centuries by Muslim philosophers, Gnostics and theologians. The point is not that there can be no injustice in Islamic societies, but that Muslims will not be able to solve their social problems as Muslim by acquiescence to the social and cultural hegemony of the West. [Both] feminine and masculine are double-edged swords. Each has a negative and a positive evaluation.

If the rigidly "patriarchal" stress of some contemporary Muslims is to be softened, this can happen only when they place renewed stress on femininity as a positive quality and masculinity as a negative quality. And Muslims will be able to do things as Muslims—not as imitation Westerners—only if they look once again at the spiritual and intellectual dimensions of their own tradition.30 Previous…