Le Moyne College Calendar

Join us for a lecture titled "Zaynab al-Ghazali's Mirror for a Modern Muslim Prince," led by Dr. Michaelle L. Browers, professor and chair of the department of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University.

Although there is a fairly extensive and growing body of work on "mirrors for princes" in Islamic contexts, attention to political thought in this genre from the modern period and by women remains quite rare. This is true even for a figure as well studied as Zaynab al-Ghazali, whose Malik wa Amal Sha'b (1954) was written to advise the future King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In this lecture, Dr. Browers will address the question: Why has this work been so neglected and what does it reveal about al-Ghazali's political thought, the possibilities and limitations of what is sometimes characterized as "Islamic feminism," and the claims made by comparative analysis of "mirror texts"?

This event is part of the Fall 2021 Social Science Seminar Series.