Ethics and women's rights in contemporary pakistani media: Traditional development? javed ahmad ghamidi, Shari'A

Pakistan has been undergoing a religious, social, and media revolution. This paper will examine a unique voice within this phenomenon -Islamic theologian and public intellectual Javed Ghamidi -and will shed light on his ideology and his distinctive utilization of both popular electronic media and innovative Qur'an-based research in influencingpublic opinion on various facets of socio-religious shari'a ethics in Pakistani women's rights issues.

A narration and analysis of relevant aspects of Pakistan's religious, social, and media situation will lay the background for exploring Ghamidi's analytical/intellectual strategy, his ideology/beliefs, and his strategies of implementing electronic media. His views regarding the shari'aethics of women's issues (e.g. rapelaws, head covering, and gender roles) will develop these points of discussion. Analogies between his and others’ current socio-religious ethics movements, native and foreign, will lead toward the paper's conclusion on the nature, purpose, and possibilities of Ghamidi's work.

Analysis of primary and secondary sources suggests that Ghamidi's work combines rejections and/or acceptances of: the state, fundamentalism, Orientalism, Occidentalism, modernization, and modernity/post-modernity. These combinations suggest possibilities and pitfalls for aculturally unique adaptation and modernization of Islamic shari'a ethics.

The study bases itselfmainly on English sources -not only Ghamidi's own original or translated words but also secondary sources of popular media (e.g. news and journal articles and interviews) and academic materials (e.g. scholarly articles on Ghamidi and books on topics relevant to Pakistani social and religious ethics).

Results of this research should provide valuable informationon Ghamidi and help examine dilemmas between inner, Islamic discourses and outer, Western academic treatments regarding his scholarly and public work and subjects directly relevant to it.

There is a dearth of scholarly secondary sources on this important public figure (especially in English). This paper is most likely among the first to examine contemporary Pakistan's media revolution exclusively with an eye towards Ghamidi, or to focus on his role in women's issues in Pakistan's shari'a ethics developments.