Abstract

Scholarly literature on Jadidism and gender mostly focuses on female education, new-method schools for girls, and women’s increasingly more active social roles in the society. With respect to women and gender, Jadidism is rarely discussed as a reform of women’s marital rights. Discussion on the reform of women’s marital rights during the 1917 Muslim women’s congress is almost the only scholarly discussion on the question. However, such discussion started much earlier, in the 1890s, with the initiative of a then-qadi of the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly, Rizaeddin Fakhreddin. Although such discussion was initiated by men, it was ordinary women who pushed for reforms. I argue that one important part of Jadid movement, about which the historiography is mostly silent, was an attempt to address and to institutionalize the marital rights of women. I suggest that, in this respect, Jadidism was rather a response to changes that were already going on in the society and women were active agents in this development.