The Freedom of “Safe Harbors”: French Muslim articulations of decolonial feminism, the obligations of sisterhood, and secular sensibilities beyond state power

Against the backdrop of increasing constraints and surveillance in the name of secular “liberation,” French Muslim women pursue a vision of freedom that refuses any binary opposition between secularism and Muslim piety. Drawing on decolonial feminism and Islamic moral psychology, as well as on “secular sensibilities” of choice, rights, and liberation, French Muslim women pursue their freedom through spaces of gender and racial non-mixité. They engage with the moral language of choice, freedom, and rights in a way that intensifies rather than diluting their pious aspirations. Freedom is cherished as a devotional virtue cultivated in community, rather than as an individualized resistance. This presentation underscores the Islamic genealogies of freedom that inform these women’s discourses, as counterweights to an Enlightenment understanding. Islamic ethics of non-compulsion, of consent and testimony, and of training the soul are essential ways to understand freedom and choice as “Islamic secular,” decolonial feminist, and pious sensibilities.