Legal and Policy Barriers Impeding Muslim Women's Right to Spiritual Equality

该项目提出了“精神平等”这一新兴概念，以此作为法律与宗教之间关系的新视角。特别是，我使用禁止穆斯林妇女戴面纱的案例研究来揭示在精神领域造成的伤害和不利；生活的一个维度尚未被承认为可能发生不平等的地方。目前宗教自由的法律人权框架迄今未能充分保护穆斯林妇女的蒙面权。“宗教”和当前对宗教自由的人权保护植根于欧洲基督教的历史，欧洲基督教的前提是宗教生活主要是内部的、私人的，是同意正式的宗教义务的问题。另一方面，灵性则讲述了穆斯林妇女的个人、非正式和宗教主体性。这为捕捉穆斯林妇女如何理解、联系和谈判她们对正式的宗教义务(如面纱)与日常需求和欲望的理解提供了肥沃的土壤。我特别关注的是，对戴面纱的监管障碍如何使精神领域的性别不平等和种族不平等永久化。我将“精神平等”定位为穆斯林妇女表达平等的起点，这种平等以虔诚为中心，将自己置于一个多方面的、与日常生活纠缠在一起的伊斯兰道德框架中。为了表达法律如何充分保护穆斯林妇女的精神平等，我采用了弗雷德曼的多维怀疑平等模型作为将精神平等转化为法律话语的有用框架。虽然我使用穆斯林妇女戴面纱的案例研究来说明精神平等是如何起作用的，但这一概念有可能适应当地背景，以解决其他少数群体面临的精神歧视问题。

This project advances an emerging conception of 'spiritual equality' as a new perspective on the relationship between law and religion. In particular, I use the case study of prohibitions on Muslim women's veiling to expose harm and disadvantage inflicted in the realm of spirituality; a dimension of life that has yet to be recognised as a site where inequalities can occur. The current legal human rights framework of freedom of religion has failed to adequately protect Muslim women's right to veil thus far. 'Religion' and current human rights protections on religious freedom are embedded within the history of European Christianity, which presupposes that religious life is predominantly internal, private and a matter of assenting to formal, religious obligations. Spirituality on the other hand, speaks to the personal, informal, religious subjectivities of Muslim women. This offers fertile ground for capturing how Muslim women understand, relate to and negotiate their understanding of formal, religious obligations (such as veiling) with everyday demands and desires. I place particular attention on how regulatory barriers to veiling perpetuate gendered and racialised inequality in the realm of spirituality. I position 'spiritual equality' as the starting point of Muslim women's articulation of equality that is centred around piety, situating themselves within an Islamic moral framework that is multi-faceted and entangled with the everyday. To express how the law can adequately protect Muslim women's spiritual equality, I adopt Fredman's multi-dimensional model of susbtantive equality as a useful framework for translating spiritual equality into legal discourses. Whilst I use the case study of Muslim women's veiling to illustrate how spiritual equality works, this concept has the potential to be adapted to local contexts to address spiritual discrimination faced by other minority groups.