Exploring Islamic feminism discourses: A Q & A with Dilyana Mincheva on her new book

Dilyana Mincheva is currently an associate professor of Communication Studies and Media Arts, and an associate member in the Department of Religious Studies. She is the author of The Politics of Muslim Intellectual Discourse in the West: The Emergence of a Western-Islamic Public Sphere (2016). Her research focuses on Islamic feminism, religious agency, social media activism, and Islamic media arts.

In this Q and A, we ask her some questions about her new book, Adversarial Islamic Feminism: Islam and Feminism Within the Western-Islamic Public Sphere.

Could you briefly introduce some of the main themes in your book?

My book interrogates the intersections of Islam and feminism within what I term the Western-Islamic public sphere, a conceptual space of critique and self-critique where Muslim women engage with feminist discourse in ways that challenge both Western liberal frameworks and dogmatic religious orthodoxy.

Through the analysis of six key figures—Nawal El Saadawi, Mona Eltahawy, Irshad Manji, Halla Diyab, Waad Al-Kateab, and Deeyah Khan—I trace the emergence of adversarial Islamic feminism, a mode of activism and intellectual resistance that is simultaneously embedded in and critical of both Islamic and secular feminist traditions.

The book explores themes such as agency, bodily integrity, honor, familial duty, and mediatized feminist activism, all within the broader context of coloniality, patriarchy, and global Islamophobia

What motivated or inspired you to embark on a project like this?

This book is the culmination of a long intellectual journey that began with my previous work on the Western-Islamic public sphere, which examined Muslim intellectuals grappling with questions of identity, belonging, and critique in the post-9/11 world.

What became apparent to me was the way in which Muslim women, particularly those engaging in feminist discourse, were positioned in complex and often contradictory ways—simultaneously co-opted by Western liberal narratives and vilified within conservative Islamic spaces.

I was particularly intrigued by the emergence of a new form of Islamic feminism, one that was highly mediatized, performative, and adversarial in nature. This book is my attempt to document and theorize that phenomenon, paying close attention to the tensions and possibilities that emerge at the borders of Islam and feminism.

In your talk, you discuss that there are six women at the heart of adversarial feminism in your book. Could you explain how they are connected in the world between the intersections of Islam and feminism?

These six women—Nawal El Saadawi, Mona Eltahawy, Irshad Manji, Halla Diyab, Waad Al-Kateab, and Deeyah Khan—are linked by their engagement with feminism in ways that challenge dominant narratives, both within Islamic contexts and in the West. They each occupy a border space where Islam and feminism intersect, often in antagonistic ways.

Some, like Saadawi and Eltahawy, articulate a radical critique of patriarchal structures within Islam, while others, like Al-Kateab and Khan, navigate a more complicated relationship with Islamic identity.

Despite their different approaches, what unites them is their capacity to provoke, to generate debate, and to unsettle both the secular feminist mainstream and the Islamic establishment. They do not fit neatly into either category; instead, they inhabit a liminal space that is at once precarious and generative.

You mentioned the turbulent navigation between contrasting Western and Islamic ideologies—how do you approach that in your work? Do you offer any resolutions for that?

Rather than seeking a resolution, I argue that the tensions between Western and Islamic ideologies should not be seen as a problem to be solved, but as a productive space for critique and transformation.

The Western-Islamic public sphere is, by its nature, an unsettled and evolving space, one in which Muslim women’s voices challenge both Islamic dogma and Western secularism. My work resists the binary logic that forces Muslim feminists to choose between Islam and feminism, between tradition and modernity. Instead, I advocate for a decolonial feminist approach that recognizes the multiple, sometimes contradictory, ways in which Muslim women engage with questions of justice, rights, and agency.

The construction of a border has been a contentious topic in the public sphere, however, you seem to reclaim the border as a positive space where conversations between Islam and feminism can be reshaped. Could you explain how you recontextualize the idea of a border?

In my work, the border is not merely a site of division, but of possibility. Following the thinking of scholars like Walter Benjamin and Sandro Mezzadra, I approach the border as a dialectical space—one that simultaneously divides and connects, repels and attracts.

The women I analyze in this book do not simply cross borders; they inhabit them, using their marginality as a space of critique and creative intervention. By positioning themselves at the edges of both Islam and feminism, they unsettle normative understandings of both. In doing so, they transform the border from a site of exclusion into a space of potential feminist solidarity.

Are you working on any other projects you would like to mention?

Yes, I am currently working on a research project that examines new media platforms and the resistance of mainstream media representations of Palestine, with a particular focus on Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo. This project continues my engagement with the Western-Islamic public sphere, interrogating how digital media is reshaping narratives around political resistance, Islamophobia, and decolonial thought.

Additionally, I am developing work on intersectional feminist care within global activist movements, exploring how the concept of radical care—as articulated by figures like Deeyah Khan—might offer alternative ways of thinking about solidarity and justice.

Beyond these projects, my next major endeavour takes me into the spaces of Balkan Islam. I will be conducting ethnographic interviews with Bulgarian Muslim communities, capturing their memories of Bulgarian communism, particularly the ‘revival process’ of the 1980s—a period when Bulgarian Turks and Muslims were forced to change their names to Slavic-sounding ones. This was a state-led effort to assimilate Muslim populations into a nationalist, religionless utopian society.

I plan to present this ethnographic research in the form of a screenplay, imagining a love story set against the backdrop of the Balkans’ tumultuous transformations before and after the collapse of communism, and the remapping of the region along ethnic, religious, and racial lines.
This project is, needless to say, deeply personal.

When and where is your book being released?

Adversarial Islamic Feminism: Islam and Feminism within the Western-Islamic Public Sphere was published by Amsterdam University Press in 2024. The book is available in both print and digital formats, and can be accessed through major academic distributors and libraries.