KUPI as a Networked Islamic Feminist Movement in Indonesia: Negotiating Gender Justice within Islamic Tradition

Naufal Aulia Hanif; Asha Kun Nayla Faizin

doi:10.24260/jrd.2.1.148

Authors

Naufal Aulia Hanif Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Author https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8608-0659
Asha Kun Nayla Faizin Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Author https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8133-1992

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24260/jrd.2.1.148

Keywords:

KUPI, Islamic feminism, Pious Agency, Epistemic Space

Abstract

The Indonesian Women Ulama Congress (KUPI) has emerged as one of the most significant examples of Islamic feminist activism in Indonesia, seeking to address gender injustice through the issuance of fatwas. This article examines how KUPI enables women ulama to gain recognition as religious authorities while remaining rooted in the epistemology and sources of the Islamic tradition. It argues that KUPI should be understood not merely as a forum for women ulama or a fatwas-making institution, but as a networked Islamic feminist movement that functions as an epistemic space. Drawing on document analysis of KUPI’s official publications and relevant academic literature, and informed by Saba Mahmood’s concept of pious agency and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s notion of epistemic recognition, this article demonstrates that KUPI’s institutional networks, collective processes of knowledge production, and methodology of fatwas formulation enable women’s lived experiences to become legitimate sources of Islamic legal reasoning. In doing so, KUPI creates the epistemic conditions through which women can establish and gain recognition for their religious authority from within the Islamic tradition.

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