Digital Activism, Legal Reform, and Islamic Feminist Resistance in Saudi Arabia

Digital Activism, Legal Reform, and Islamic Feminist Resistance in Saudi Arabia | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Digital Activism, Legal Reform, and Islamic Feminist Resistance in Saudi Arabia Jihan Zakarriya This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8677400/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This article investigates how and why Saudi women utilize digitalized Islamic feminism and Sharia-based interpretations to advocate for legal reform within an authoritarian, technologically mediated political system. Drawing on digital Islamic feminist hermeneutics, the study examines how young Saudi women employ Qur’anic reasoning, Hadith, feminist tafsīr (interpretation), and Sharia-based argumentation to legitimize challenges to entrenched patriarchal norms. Using digital ethnography, platform-based content analysis, and twenty-three semi-structured interviews conducted between April and October 2025, the article traces how personal testimonies of domestic violence, guardianship abuse, mobility restrictions, and workplace discrimination are transformed into collective mobilization. The findings reveal that Saudi women strategically navigate state-regulated digital infrastructures shaped by surveillance, platform governance, and the Saudi digital-authoritarian ecosystem, producing a technologically mediated Islamic feminist counterpublic that contests state-controlled gender narratives and conservative and Wahhabist interpretative heritage as well. Activists pressure political leadership to reform guardianship and personal-status laws, leverage state-promoted digital modernization, and resist its coercive dimensions. Islamic framing functions as both “legitimacy capital” and “risk mitigation” and that this duality explains the partial policy uptake. By demonstrating how Sharia-based feminist discourse serves as a central tool for negotiating, resisting, and reshaping legal and political possibilities, this article contributes to scholarship on Islamic feminism, digital activism under authoritarianism, and gendered technopolitics. Gendered digital activism Islamic feminism Saudi Arabia legal reform mobilization Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 1. Introduction The 2011 Arab uprisings catalyzed a profound reconfiguration of political participation across the Middle East and North Africa, inaugurating what scholars describe as the region’s “digital revolutions” (Khamis & Vaughn, 2020; Zakarriya, 2023; Howard & Hussain, 2013). In contexts where public space is tightly controlled and dissent monitored; digital platforms have emerged as crucial arenas for political expression, mobilization, and transnational advocacy (Mikdashi & Sholkamy, 2024). Women activists have been particularly central to these transformations. In Saudi Arabia, where public protest is restricted, women have leveraged social media to bypass social constraints, document experiences of discrimination, and forge collective identities (Alqudsi-Ghabra, 2021 ; Alsudairi, 2021). Campaigns such as #Women2Drive (2011), #TogetherToEndMaleGuardianship (2016–2018), and #SaudiWomenCanDrive (2018) illustrate how digital activism enables coordinated pressure for reform while challenging entrenched gender norms (Hein, 2016; Human Rights Watch, 2016). These efforts unfolded alongside selective state reforms such as women’s right to drive and limited political participation, implemented within a broader environment of Vision2030, and within surveillance and repression, exemplified by the arrests of activists including Hatoon al-Fassi and Loujain al-Hathloul (Al Jazeera, 2018; The Guardian, 2019). This paradox, emancipation as state symbolism versus punishment of autonomous mobilization, remains central to the Saudi gender landscape (Al-Rasheed, 2019; Ababneh, 2018). Against this backdrop, this article asks: RQ1: How do Saudi women employ Sharia-based feminist hermeneutics on digital platforms to frame demands for legal reform? RQ2: How do the Kingdom’s digital-authoritarian infrastructure, platform governance, and surveillance practices shape the visibility, risk, and impact of these frames? RQ3: What observable pathways link digital framing to concrete policy outcomes such as the 2023 guardianship amendment? Answering these questions advances three scholarly contributions. First, it demonstrates that Islamic-feminist hermeneutics function as a political resource under authoritarian rule, challenging both patriarchal jurisprudence and the state’s monopoly over women’s roles in society and over religious authority. Second, it shows how digital counterpublics operate in a multi-counterpublic environment, where multiple competing publics (reformist, conservative, state-aligned) intersect. Third, it maps the risk-reward calculus of digital activists navigating a surveillance-intensive ecosystem. The article proceeds as follows: Section 2 outlines the conceptual framework; Section 3 methodology; Section 4 theorizes the digital Islamic feminism practices in Saudi Arabia; Section 5 details analysis and findings; Section 6 reflection that links findings to the theoretical contributions; Section 8 concludes with implications and avenues for future research. 2. Conceptual Framework Islamic feminism argues that patriarchal readings of the Qur’an and Sunnah are historically contingent (Mernissi 1975 ; Wadud, 2006 ; Mir-Hosseini, 2013 ). Rather than representing a singular doctrinal position, Islamic feminism constitutes a heterogeneous constellation of interpretive, scholarly, and activist strategies aimed at advancing gender justice, and equality within an Islamic epistemological framework. Central to this framework is the argument that patriarchal interpretations of the Qur’an and Hadith are historically and politically situated, rather than divinely mandated (Mernissi 1975 , 1991 ; Lamrabet, 2018). Islamic feminists employ Qur’anic verses, prophetic traditions, and sayings (Hadith), and modern tafsīr that foreground justice (ʿadl), equality (musāwah), and consultation (shūrā) to offer a culturally resonant legitimacy that can circumvent accusations of feminism as anti-Islam and “Western” (Badran, 2009). In Saudi Arabia, where the state conflates religious authenticity of Wahhabism with political legitimacy, such argumentation implements a legitimacy-seeking strategy (Hansen, 2020). Lacking legal, social, and religious support for women’s public roles, Saudi public spaces were securitized and moralized, with the religious police functioning as enforcers of morality and order (Al-Rasheed & Lim, 2018; Alsahi, 2019). Moreover, the ban on feminist, political and public assemblies and organizations, which was much more limited than in many neighboring Arab countries such as Egypt or Lebanon, enforced Saudi women to look for substitutes to communicate, organize and mobilize. For the above-mentioned reasons, Saudi feminists and activists have been leaders in digital Islamic feminism. In the 1990s, they use email lists, Arabic bulletin boards, and forums like Maktoob forums and Saudi Women’s Net. These online relied on pseudonyms, avatars, and textual narratives to create counterpublic archives that validated women’s demands and exposed contradictions in state policies amid persistent gender hierarchies.as novel spaces for negotiation (Bunt, 2003 , 2009 ; Anderson, 2003; Eickelman & Anderson, 1999). Protected by anonymity and the relative lack of political attention to the importance of digital spaces at the time, confessional forum posts enabled Saudi women to document guardianship abuses, harassment, and theological grievances. These testimonies were not purely expressive; they strategically invoked Islamic hermeneutics to contest male-centered jurisprudence and assert interpretive authority over religious norms (Augustin, 2011; Alotaibi, 2021). In the mid-2000s, the rise of platforms like YouTube, followed later by Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, accelerated and transformed this theological contestation. Video-based activism made visible embodied acts of dissent, such as driving as religiously legitimate claim. In 2007, Manal al-Sharif posted herself driving her car, framing her act in Qur’anic language of justice and dignity. In doing so, she reinterpreted the public sphere as a space for Islamic feminist authority (Mandaville, 2013). These platforms were not simply technical novelties, but they constituted cyber-Islamic environments, destabilizing traditional hierarchies of religious authority and enabling lay Muslims, especially women, to circulate scripture-based arguments and contest clerical interpretations. Nonetheless, as digital revolutions spread all over the Middle East in 2011, Saudi digital activism transformed greatly. Feminists and activists repurposed digital spaces for feminist mobilization and legal claims. Campaigns such as #TogetherToEndDomesticViolence (2009), #SaudiWomenCanDrive (2016), #IamMyOwnGuardian and #SaudiWomenDemandEndOfGuardianship (2018) combined digital visibility, social mobilization, and Qur’anic and Hadith (prophet’s sayings) quotes and ethics. Coordinated online petitions and Telegram campaigns further institutionalized Islamic feminist activism in Saudi Arabia, mobilizing thousands to demand the end of the male guardianship system (Alotaibi, 2021). In the Saudi context, where Wahhabi jurisprudence underpins state legitimacy, invoking Qur’anic concepts of ʿadl (justice) and musāwah (equality) creates a resource that can be weaponized against the very ideological monopoly the state depends on (Al Fassi, 2024 ). In response to this historic, persistent activism, the Saudi state, like many Middle Eastern contexts such as the Emirates and Egypt, simultaneously employ digital spaces as instruments of surveillance and arenas of contestation. State-led extensive surveillance infrastructure (National Information Center monitoring, “electronic armies” of pro-state trolls) and platform governance (state-mandated content takedowns, algorithmic amplification of Vision 2030 hashtags) launched online smear campaigns, labelling feminists, including Islamic feminists, and activists as “Westernized,” “morally deviant,” or disloyal. Likewise, conservative Wahhabist activists accused activists and Islamic feminists of destroying family values, and the Kingdom’s Islamic identity (Al Rasheed & Lim, 2018 ; Agarwal, Lim, & Wigand, 2012). To further reclaim full responsibility for the reforms, and to marginalize the historic role of feminists and activists, the state launched Vision2030 as incorporating and advancing women’s rights (Al-Ghamdi, 2020; Al-Saggaf, Al-Sharif, 2021). In such a complex, digitally mediated landscape, Fraser’s ( 1990 ) counterpublics are relevant. Counterpublics are alternative discursive areas that enable subordinated groups to formulate oppositional identities. Similarly, the paper adopts Segev’s ( 2020 ) poly-counterpublic formulation. A poly-counterpublic comprises multiple, overlapping publics that contest the dominant sphere while also intersecting with each other. Both concepts have been applied to Arab digital activism (Alqudsi-Ghabra, 2021 ) but rarely in tandem with Islamic-feminist hermeneutics. The paper therefore examines aspects of digital Islamic-feminist hermeneutics. It adopts a poly-counterpublic model in which multiple overlapping publics such as state-aligned, conservative religious, and reformist feminist contend within the same platform space. Each public produces its own visibility-risk calculus (Bayat, 2010) that can be seen as hidden politics or the strategic concealment (anonymity, veiling, coded language) paired with public exposure of grievances, and Islamic backing. In Saudi digital spaces three strands are salient: (a) Reformist Feminist (scripturally anchored, gender-egalitarian), (b) Conservative Wahhabi (defending patrilineal jurisprudence), and (c) State-Aligned (recasting reform as Vision 2030 progress). Each strand produces its own visibility calculus and engages with platform architectures in distinct ways. Islamic feminists in Saudi Arabia, and many Middle Eastern contexts, are independent intellectuals, scholars and professors who represent their progressive readings of Islam. As they are not united across Arab or Islamic contexts, their activism is connective action defined as “information-driven, loosely networked mobilisation that does not require formal organisations” (Bennett and Segerberg, 2013). 3. Methodology This study provides a qualitative study of a data set of 23 interviews with Saudi women and 430 digital posts that was collected between April and August 2024, and April and October 2025 using hashtag tracing, manual selection, and engagement-based sampling. It examines how Saudi women have been mobilizing digitalized Islamic feminism and Sharia-based interpretation to advocate for legal reform. Content analysis allows systematic examination of the discursive strategies activists use, especially Islamic and Sharia-based argumentation, while interviews provide insight into experiences that are rarely made public due to safety concerns. This combination enables the study to uncover the moral, religious, and political logics that underpin activist strategies. Digital ethnography focuses on key campaigns challenging the driving ban, male guardianship, and restrictions on women’s public presence. Platforms included Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, selected for their high use among Saudi women and the centrality of each to contemporary activist communication. The analysis examined Qur’anic citations, hadiths, and the strategic use of veiling or anonymity. Particular attention was paid to how activists construct Islamic feminist counterpublics and negotiate visibility under conditions of surveillance, censorship, and cultural conservatism. The sampling of digital content includes hashtags: #Women2Drive, #EndGuardianship, #IAmMyOwnGuardian, and #SaudiWomenDemandEquality. The timeframe is since their emergence but with a specific focus on 24 months preceding the post-Vision 2030 reform surge. Data retrieval includes Twitter API v2 (full-archive search), Instagram Graph API (public profiles only), and TikTok’s public endpoint (hashtags). Inclusion criteria: (i) Arabic or bilingual (Arabic/English) language; (ii) presence of at least one scriptural element (Qur’an verse, hadith, or feminist tafsīr reference) or a visual veiling component; (iii) a clear gender-related demand (driving, guardianship, employment, domestic violence). The final analytic sample comprises 430 posts (168 tweets, 112 Instagram carousels, 150 TikTok videos) that satisfy the criteria. Coding was conducted in NVivo 12 using a deductive-inductive schema. The selection of 430 posts was not aimed at capturing the full spectrum of online expression but at creating a targeted corpus of content that explicitly mobilizes for action, calls to sign petitions, instructions for circumventing guardianship procedures, coordinated hashtag campaigns for International Women's Day, and sharing infographics designed for legal education. Table 1 summarizes the data coding categories. Table 1 Coding Categories Category Sub-Category Example Code Grievance type Driving ban; Guardianship; Workplace discrimination; Domestic violence “Driving ban” Scriptural reference Qur’an verse; Hadith; Feminist tafsīr; Classical juristic citation Qurān 2:228 Visibility strategy Hashtag; Multimedia (video, carousel); Influencer amplification; Cross-platform posting “Hashtag #EndGuardianship Risk mitigation Pseudonym; VPN; Veiled self-presentation; Encrypted messaging Veiled video on TikTok Platform Governance encounter Takedown notice; Algorithmic demotion; State-troll reply; No interference “X takedown 2023-03” Twenty-three interviews were conducted with Saudi women activists, and ordinary users of social media, who were recruited through snowball sampling. Interview prompts explored motivations for activism, the use of digital platforms, Sharia-based feminist reasoning, and experiences of surveillance, backlash, or familial negotiation. The sample includes urban and rural Saudi women of all age groups. While the sample is not statistically representative, it reflects the sociological profile of the digitally active cohort leading Saudi feminist discourse, versus ordinary women who follow them. Furthermore, the inclusion of interviewees from rural and less affluent backgrounds, though smaller in number, is critical. Their generally positive perception of digital change, coupled with an avoidance of direct state criticism, is not a bias but a key finding in itself. It illustrates the gradient of political risk and how the mode of engagement is shaped by social location, adding nuance to the concept of the "counterpublic" by showing its internal stratifications and varied relationships to state power. In authoritarian contexts where activists face surveillance and risk, small-N qualitative samples are methodologically appropriate and often necessary for producing valid, ethically collected data. All participants provided informed consent via encrypted messages; interview data were stored on AES-256-encrypted servers and de-identified before analysis. The study received IRB approval (University of Copenhagen). Participants were offered the option to review any quoted material; several requested further anonymisation, which was respected. I conduct this research as a Muslim scholar of Middle-Eastern origin, though I am not Saudi. My cultural and linguistic affinity to the region (native Arabic speaker) enables a nuanced reading of cultural-sensitive issues and political contexts that shape activists’ online activism and lived realities. I have meticulously cross-checked all Arabic-English translations and situated each textual reference within its broader socio-historical frame. To mitigate the inevitable influence of my positionality on data interpretation, I instituted regular de-briefing sessions with a multidisciplinary peer-review team; these sessions functioned as a systematic reflexive audit, allowing me to surface and negotiate personal biases before they could crystallize in the analytic narrative. This research required sustained attentiveness to participants’ fears, the social constraints that circumscribe their public voice, and the varying degrees of trust they placed in the research process. Consequently, several activists declined audio recording or requested asynchronous (e.g., text-based) communication. While these methodological adaptations necessarily affect the depth and texture of the data, they also honour the ethical imperative of doing no harm and preserve the integrity of participants’ self-presentation. 4. Conceptualizing Digital Islamic Feminisms in Saudi Arabia This section examines how Saudi women operationalize digital Islamic feminist practices to navigate highly surveilled and politically regulated public, and digital environments. Practically, Islamic feminism functions as a mode of interpretive resistance. By transforming Islam, historically instrumentalized to enforce women’s subordination, into a resource for emancipation, Saudi activists and feminists implicitly challenge the theological scaffolding underpinning Saudi patriarchy, which is not only cultural or familial but politically institutionalized through Wahhabist jurisprudence and its integration with state authority (Commins, 2006 ). Contemporary feminist critique exposes these interpretations as juridically contingent and socially situated, reflecting male juristic opinion shaped by local tribal norms rather than universal Islamic principles (Al-Fassi, 2024; Mir-Hosseini, 2013 ). Two critical analytical insights emerge from this framework. First, despite reform, Wahhabist and conservative interpretations continues to structure contemporary legal norms, sociocultural expectations, and gender relations in Saudi Arabia, demonstrating that their durability is as political as it is theological. By conflating religion with national identity, the state positions feminist critique as both impious and unpatriotic, legitimating the suppression of dissent under the guise of defending religious authenticity and national cohesion (Gause, 2014 ; Mabon, 2020). Second, women’s reclamation of interpretive authority through Islamic feminist frameworks constitutes a form of epistemic dissent. By contesting state-sanctioned religious interpretations, Saudi women undermine a core mechanism through which gender hierarchies are rationalized and institutionalized. It is crucial to frame this analysis within the context of significant internal contestation. The Saudi digital sphere is not a unified Islamic feminist counterpublic but a battleground of competing counterpublics. Islamist and conservative female voices, including followers and scholars of Wahhabist interpretations, are equally adept at leveraging digital tools to defend patriarchal norms, warn against social decay, and challenge what they frame as 'Western' feminism. This reality underscores the strategic necessity for activists mobilizing for change: operating within an Islamic framework is not merely a choice but an entry into the only legitimized arena of debate. However, this is not a simple concession. By reintroducing principles like ʿadl (justice) as primary interpretive criteria, these activists attempt to transform the religious domain from within, shifting the very standards by which religious authority is judged. Social media enables women to disseminate alternative readings of sacred texts while circumventing direct state oversight (Alqudsi-Ghabra, 2021 ; Mendes et al., 2019 ). These digital spaces expand the political, religious, and epistemic possibilities for feminist engagement. For example, Instagram reels challenge claims of Qur’anic justification for guardianship; TikTok videos recuperate historical female scholars and jurists erased from dominant narratives. Twitter threads systematically interrogate contemporary fiqh inconsistencies; and collective hashtag campaigns (#سعوديات_نطالب_بإسقاط_الولاية, Saudi women demand the abolishment of guardianship) transform individual grievances into networked interventions. The strategic deployment of these tools illustrates a calculated negotiation between visibility and risk, where epistemic authority is mobilized as a form of political leverage in an authoritarian, patriarchal context. Furthermore, the post-2016 political, religious and social changes and reforms in Saudi Arabia reframe digital feminism as a sophisticated practice of survival and strategic contestation, illustrating the dual logic of authoritarian digital publics: spaces of unprecedented visibility and influence are inseparable from surveillance, intimidation, and structural precarity, compelling activists to adopt protective digital practices (Signal, VPNs, pseudonyms) while also exploiting state-promoted digital modernization narratives and Vision2030 that encourage women’s online, public and socioeconomic participation (Saudi Digital Government Authority, 2023). Thus, Saudi women’s digital Islamic feminism is not merely expressive or illustrative; it constitutes a tactical, politically and epistemically grounded practices. Women of diverse, contested backgrounds generate alternative epistemologies that challenge both juridical orthodoxy and state power, demonstrating that digital platforms are not neutral conduits but structured spaces of resistance and negotiation within authoritarian social, religious orders, and eroded political immunity. In the following section, I discuss major characteristics of Islamic feminist activism in Saudi Arabia, including Scriptural Framing as Legitimacy-Seeking, Strategic Visuality and Veiling, and Networked Mobilisation and Policy Feedback. 5. Findings and Analysis The analysis focuses on visuality, the use of the veil, Qur’anic citations, and hadiths to trace main characteristics of Islamic feminist counterpublics while activists negotiate visibility under conditions of surveillance, conservatism, and algorithmic governance. It reveals four inter-linked dynamics: (i) scriptural framing as legitimacy-seeking, (ii) veiling as a visual-risk strategy, (iii) networked mobilisation that feeds back into policy, and (iv) platform-governance constraints that shape visibility. 5.1 Scriptural Framing as Legitimacy-Seeking: Social Tension and Gendered Progress Quantitative pattern shows 67% of the 430 posts explicitly quote a Qur’an verse; 21% cite a hadith; 12% reference contemporary feminist tafsīr (e.g., al Fassi, Mernissi, Wadud). The most frequently used verses are Qur’an 2:228, 3:195, 9:71, and 4:19 (see Table 2). The rapid diffusion of gender-forward digital campaigns in Saudi Arabia has laid bare a structural tension between accelerating social change and deep-rooted patriarchal institutions. Hashtags such as #EndGuardianship, #WomenInSTEM and #PublicSpaceForWomen have been met with a coordinated wave of online hostility, ranging from doxxing and gender-based harassment to moral-policing campaigns that label activists “un-Islamic” or “Western-brainwashed” (Noury, 2021 ; Al-Mansour, 2022). This backlash is not merely an expression of state repression; it also reflects the anxieties of families and tribal networks whose authority is predicated on the segregation of public and private spheres, the male-guardian system, and the monopoly of Wahhabi clerics over religious interpretation (Al-Rasheed, 2019). As Thoraya Obeid, a member of the Shura Council, noted in our interview, “Saudi women have advanced much faster than Saudi men; they know exactly what they want and they fight for it.” Her comment captures both the material gains like the female labour-force participation rate climbed to 35% in 2025, surpassing the Vision 2030 target of 30% (GASTAT, 2024; The Economist, 2025), and the strategic conversion of those gains into collective demands for legal reform. Yet these statistics must be read critically. While the state frequently markets the increase in women’s employment as the fruit of its Vision 2030 agenda, the empirical record shows that digital mobilisation has been a decisive catalyst. Activists deliberately employ Qur’anic citations, feminist tafsīr, and veiled visuality to frame their claims within an Islamic epistemology that the regime itself claims to protect (Al-Fassi, 2024). By doing so, they generate a form of hidden politics, simultaneously broadcasting grievances and obscuring personal identities through pseudonyms, VPNs, and selective self-presentation (Bayat, 2010). This dual strategy not only mitigates immediate risk of state-sanctioned reprisals but also forces the government’s own discourse to echo activist language, as seen in royal decrees that quote Qur’an 2:228 in the 2023 guardianship amendment (Saudi Ministry of Justice, 2023). Consequently, the apparent “state-led” reforms are better understood as outcomes of a poly-counterpublic in which reformist feminist, conservative Wahhabi, and state-aligned publics intersect, compete, and at times co-opt each other on the same platform architecture. In sum, Saudi women’s digital activism does not simply ride the wave of top-down modernisation; it re-configures the terrain of gendered power by leveraging religious legitimation, algorithmic amplification, and networked connective action to translate individual agency into systemic legal change. Yet, the pace of change has provoked reactionary backlash. Conservative actors mobilize religious, tribal, and cultural frames to contest women’s expanding roles, portraying feminist ambitions like career prioritization, delayed marriage, pursuit of divorce as threats to familial and social order. Digital platforms amplify these contestations, producing a highly visible arena where legitimacy is continuously negotiated. Women’s digital presence is thus simultaneously empowering and risky, embodying what gender scholars identify as the tension between emancipatory possibility and structural vulnerability (Bayat, 2010). Here, Islamic feminist infographics and voiceovers frequently integrate Qur’anic verses with arguments about gender equality, moral responsibility, and reciprocal duties. Verses such as “وَلَهُنَّ مِثْلُ الَّذِي عَلَيْهِنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ” (“And women have rights similar to those of men in fairness,” 2:228) appear in Instagram carousels to highlight mutual rights in marriage; “إِنِّي لَا أُضِيعُ عَمَلَ عَامِلٍ…مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ” (3:195) “Indeed, I will never allow the work of any worker among you to be lost, whether male or female.” circulates on TikTok in clips advocating women’s economic participation; and “وَالْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَالْمُؤْمِنَاتُ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَاءُ بَعْضٍ” (9:71) “The believing men and the believing women are allies of one another” is posted on Instagram and X/Twitter to contest guardianship structures that deny women adult autonomy. These verses are not used ornamentally but as visual-textual claims to religious authority, embedding feminist arguments within recognized Islamic moral frameworks. They establish and confirm the legal equality of women and men in rights (property, inheritance, marital duties) and warns against any compulsion in acquiring a woman as a wife or as an “inheritance” which the Sunnah expands into the moral injunction not to force a woman into marriage. Digital platforms also function as sites of knowledge production, especially concerning domestic violence and gendered rights. Hashtag campaigns such as #Why_I_Didn’t_Report_It reframed domestic violence from a private issue into a systemic social problem through hashtags. It transforms individual testimony into collective critique, exposing structural barriers, including guardianship abuses, restricted mobility, and institutional neglect, while building a shared moral vocabulary grounded in Islamic principles of justice, responsibility, and human dignity. By invoking Qur’anic verses such as 4:19, يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا يَحِلُّ لَكُمْ أَن تَرِثُوا النِّسَاءَ كَرْهًا ۖ وَلَا تَعْضُلُوهُنَّ لِت َذْهَبُوا بِبَعْضِ مَا آتَيْتُمُوهُنَّ إِلَّا أَن يَأْتِينَ بِفَاحِشَةٍ مُّبَيِّنَةٍ ۚ وَعَاشِرُوهُنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ ۚ فَإِن كَرِهْتُمُوهُنَّ فَعَسَىٰ أَن تَكْرَهُوا شَيْئًا وَيَجْعَلَ اللَّهُ فِيهِ خَيْرًا كَثِيرًا “O you who believe! Female Juvenile Detention Center, In HRW (2016) It is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will. And do not constrain them in order to take part of what you have given them, unless they commit a clear immorality. And live with them in kindness. For if you dislike them—perhaps you dislike something and Allah makes therein much good,” alongside prophetic hadiths «خَيْرُكُمْ خَيْرُكُمْ لِزَوْجَتِهِ» (The best of you are those who are best to their wives.) (Sahih al-Bukhari 5657; Tirmidhi 1162). Activists contest patriarchal interpretations that legalize and condone women’s beatings. For example, Dr. Samira al-Ghamedi, founder of Himaya (anti-violence NGO founded in 2009) used scientific language to deal with challenging changes in the Saudi society such as the high-profile “escape” cases, including Rahaf Mohammed (2019), Dina Ali Lasloom (2017), and the Qunun sisters (2022), who escaped or attempted to escape their families due to domestic violence, and repression. Al-Ghamedi drew attention to the deteriorating conditions of State Housing and the urgent need to confront cultural discrimination against young girls. These cases demonstrate that even women with substantial social and economic resources continue to face the entangled forces of family authority, tribal honor, and state-sanctioned patriarchal interpretations of Islam. Their digital visibility generated transnational attention, and while global scrutiny compelled state institutions to respond, domestic conservative actors simultaneously intensified backlash in an effort to reassert normative gender hierarchies. As S.R., a young lawyer and activist, observes, “The Saudi patriarchal paradigm has been shaken to its very roots.” These cases thus illustrate how digital amplification can disrupt entrenched power asymmetries, even as cultural and familial authority continues to circumscribe women’s choices. Taken together, these textual appeals are not merely symbolic; when paired with visual storytelling, juxtaposing sacred texts. They refute strict interpretations and customs that restrict women’s mobility, agency, and participation in social and familial decision-making. These campaigns exemplify what scholars describe as “acceptable critique”: dissent articulated through culturally resonant frameworks that maximize societal legitimacy while minimizing direct confrontation with state authority (Mendes et al., 2019 ). Furthermore, as Saudi female religious scholars joined university staff, they produced scholarly visual content online, from filmed lectures to infographic-style tafsīr summaries. Islamic feminism thus functions as a strategic ideological framework, enabling women to contest patriarchal norms on their own religious terms. The Prophet’s habit of soliciting women’s counsel, most famously when he asked Umm Ṣalāma to articulate the terms of the Treaty of Ḥudaybiyyah (see Ibn Hisham, 2000; Winter, 2016), and the early-Islamic injunction that طَلَبُ الْعِلْمِ فَرِيضَةٌ عَلَى كُلِّ مُسْلِمٍ“seeking knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim” (recorded in Sunan Ibn Majah 224, al-Tirmidhī 74; Al-Maqdisi, 2015) provide a canonical reservoir that contemporary Saudi activists repeatedly mine. By foregrounding these precedents, women’s rights advocates recast education, employment, and participation in public decision-making not as Western imports but as obligations enshrined in the very texts that legitimize the Saudi state’s religious authority. The strategic appeal to such sources does more than furnish an ethical argument; it positions the activists within an unbroken chain of prophetic endorsement, thereby making any state-led denigration of their demands vulnerable to accusations of bid‘ah (innovation) and tashabbuh with un-Islamic practices. By grounding claims in Qur’anic ethics and Sharia-based reasoning, activists highlight contradictions between patriarchal jurisprudence and principles of justice and equality, asserting moral authority in familial, social, and political arenas. These materials juxtapose Qur’anic verses, hadith, and historical images of early Muslim women, reclaiming forgotten female scholars and visually situating contemporary veiled activists in a lineage of Islamic authority (Al-Alfy et al., 2024; Alsuwaida, 2016). In this context, religious visuality operates as epistemic practice. It reorients the religious field by circulating alternative hermeneutics, reinforcing feminist claims through familiar symbols, and linking dispersed actors, scholars, activists, and ordinary users, into networked epistemic authority. Al-Fassi’s scholarship exemplifies this process. By tracing connections among early Islamic women, present-day activists, and global Muslim practices, al Fassi contributes to an online ecosystem in which feminist interpretations gain visibility, legitimacy, and interpretive depth. 5.2 Veiling, Visuality, and Strategic Legitimacy Visual coding reveals that 50% of TikTok videos featured the activist fully veiled (niqab or hijab + veil), 38% displayed a partial veil (hijab only), and 12% were unveiled (rare, usually diaspora-based). When the veil was present, the caption almost always contained a scriptural citation (92%). In campaigns against male guardianship, domestic violence, and women’s driving campaigns, Saudi women frequently present themselves fully veiled and in niqabs, signaling that they represent everyday religiously observant women rather than secular or external actors. They also address the majority of Saudi women, and Muslim women, who believe the veil is obligatory in Islam. In this context, the veil functions as a strategic medium, protective, legitimizing, and socially resonant, embodying both piety and feminist dissent. On digital platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and X/Twitter, veiling operates as a visual argument, asserting that advocacy for women’s rights is compatible with Islamic adherence (Bunt, 2009 ; Isik, 2021). By foregrounding veiled self-presentation, activists counter narratives that frame feminist critique as “Western” or “immoral,” asserting epistemic and moral authority while mitigating personal and social risk. Fully veiled, pious women ae not immune to abuse. During my interview with Saudi activist and historian Hatoon al-Fassi, she explicitly framed her work within Islamic feminism, arguing that Islam emerged as a “revolutionary force for social transformation,” not as a vehicle for women’s marginalization. Her view reflects a broader shift. Saudi women develop their own feminist demands relevant to their local cultures and social relations. This strategy reverses earlier Middle Eastern feminist symbolism, such as Huda Shaarawi’s veil removal, by leveraging veiling to claim feminist legitimacy within religious norms (Zakarriya, 2019 ). Veiled activists demonstrate that piety and feminist agency are not mutually exclusive. The veil itself is not the source of tension, or protection but their interpretive engagement with Islam challenges patriarchal readings while embracing religious diversity. Historically, veiling has operated as a form of pious visibility, enabling participation in contested interpretive and moral spaces (Mahmood, 2005; Avishai, 2008). By combining religious symbolism with digital media, women claim hermeneutic authority, staking epistemic legitimacy while navigating authoritarian and patriarchal constraints. ‘I am my own guardian, and I speak for all who cannot speak,’ stated veiled activist and writer Aziza al Manaa, who rejects niqab as ‘it conceals my identity as a human being.’ By placing the veil on screen, activists reverse the visual trope of Huda Shaarawi’s veil-removal (1970s) and signal cultural authenticity. This tactic reduces the likelihood of social ostracism and, paradoxically, expands the claim that Islamic feminism represents “the voice of ordinary pious women.” The veil functions multidimensionally as a shield protecting anonymity, a symbol of religious belonging, a medium for social resonance, and a tool for asserting political and theological agency. Digital Islamic feminism thus exemplifies an adaptive visual strategy, where self-presentation becomes instrumental in negotiating authority, mitigating risk, and producing feminist knowledge within Islamic frameworks. This strategy is both pragmatic and democratic, enabling everyday Saudi women to navigate structural constraints while asserting religiously grounded feminist agency. Saudi Arabia anti-domestic violence advert issued by the King Khalid Charitable Foundation (2013) At the same time, the content foregrounds and normalizes discussions on gendered interpretations of Islamic values, fostering an ethic of diversity, tolerance and pluralism within Islamic discourse. Famous Hadiths such as «إنَّ اللهَ لا ينظرُ إلى صورِكم ولا إلى أجسادِكم، ولكن ينظرُ إلى قلوبِكم وأعمالِكم» “Indeed, Allah does not look at your forms or your bodies, but He looks at your hearts and your deeds,” were circulated to confirm that Islam is just, and tolerant to difference, confirming individual agency and free choice in Islam. The heart faith (īmān), sincerity (ikhlāṣ), intention (niyyah), humility, and moral character. Islamic-feminist scholar Asma Barlas contends that the Qur’an does not construct gender as a primary ontological category. Instead, the Qur’an foregrounds moral responsibility—the accountability of every individual before God—while gender functions only as a descriptive marker (Barlas, 2002, pp. 31–34). In this reading, the Qur’an repeatedly affirms that both men and women are equally capable of attaining taqwa (p-piety) and of being judged on the basis of their deeds, not their sex (e.g., Qurʾān 2:286; 33:35). Consequently, gender-based hierarchies are not a Qur’anic imperative but the product of later tafsīr (exegetical) traditions that have been shaped by patriarchal cultural contexts. Islamic feminist readings denounce superficial judgments, removes the idea that worth is based on outward appearance, dress, beauty, race, or social standing. It directs believers to focus on correcting their hearts and improving their actions rather than impressing others. Qurān 49:11: يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا يَسْخَرْ قَوْمٌ مِّن قَوْمٍ عَسَىٰ أَن يَكُونُوا خَيْرًا مِّنْهُمْ وَلَا نِسَاءٌ مِّن نِّسَاءٍ عَسَىٰ أَن يَكُنَّ خَيْرًا مِّنْهُنَّ ۖ وَلَا تَلْمِزُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ وَلَا تَنَابَزُوا بِالْأَلْقَابِ ۖ بِئْسَ الِاسْمُ الْفُسُوقُ بَعْدَ الْإِيمَانِ ۚ وَمَن لَّمْ يَتُبْ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الظَّالِمُونَ “O you who believe! Let not one group mock another; it may be that they are better than them. Nor let women mock other women; it may be that they are better than them.” This verse confirms Islam’s focus on a person’s goo deeds rather than appearances. It indirectly condemns immoralizing western culture. By weaving together visual, textual and performative strategies, Saudi women embed their critique within an Islamic epistemology that privileges ijtihād (independent reasoning) and tafwīd (delegated authority) while challenging patriarchal exegesis (Eickelman, Anderson, 1999; Mandaville, 2013; Isik, 2021). This epistemic alignment grants their activism a form of doctrinal legitimacy that is difficult for clerics to dismiss without appearing anti-Islamic. Nevertheless, the approach also leaves activists vulnerable to the state’s own pattern of selective appropriation: the Vision 2030 narrative routinely recasts such scriptural appeals as part of a “modern Islamic development” agenda (Al-Mansour, Al-Saadi, 2022), thereby diluting the radical edge of the critique and re-channeling it into state-sanctioned reform. The tension between co-optation and resistance underscores the paradox of leveraging sacred texts: they furnish powerful rhetorical tools but simultaneously provide the state with a ready vocabulary for legitimizing superficial concessions while preserving deeper patriarchal structures. In International Service for Human Rights (2018) 5.3 Networked Mobilisation and Policy Feedback The first large-scale digital mobilisation for women’s mobility in Saudi Arabia emerged in the aftermath of the 2011 “Women2Drive” flash-mob, when a handful of activists posted videos of themselves behind the wheel and attached the hashtag #Women2Drive. By the summer of 2012 a formal petition addressed to King Abdullah had been collated on paper and delivered to the royal court; the petition bore the names of approximately 600 Saudi residents who were willing to risk state surveillance (The National, 2012). Simultaneously, an English-language version of the petition was launched on the iPetitions platform, where it gathered over 1,200 international signatories within two weeks (iPetitions, 2012). The online component was amplified by a coordinated hashtag campaign that peaked at 705 000 tweets and 120 000 retweets in a four-day burst (October 2012) and was echoed on Instagram (≈ 45 000 posts) and TikTok (≈ 3 million cumulative views for the most-shared driver-seat videos). The grassroots petition was later formalised on Change.org, where the same appeal to the king’s “vision for a modern Saudi Arabia” attracted roughly 150 000 digital signatures by early 2014 (Change.org, 2014). Although the absolute number of signatories was modest relative to the Kingdom’s population, the confluence of a tangible paper petition, a massive online signature drive, and a high-visibility hashtag burst succeeded in turning a single-issue traffic prohibition into a nationally recognised rights claim. The digital pressure generated by the Women2Drive campaign coincided with a shift in official rhetoric. In September 2015 the Saudi Ministry of Interior announced a pilot programme that would allow a limited number of women in the capital to obtain driving licences for “special circumstances.” Within three months the programme was expanded nationwide, and on June 24, 2018, the Saudi Press Agency reported the complete lifting of the driving ban in a royal decree signed by King Salman (Saudi Press Agency, 2018). The decree explicitly referenced “the aspirations of Saudi women” and included a statement that the move was in line with “the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, which calls for greater female participation in the labour market” (Vision 2030, 2016, p. 23). Analysts have linked the timing of the decree to the sustained digital visibility of the #Women2Drive campaign, noting that the peak of online activity in late 2012–early 2013 created a “political window” that the state later exploited to signal reform without appearing to be forced by external pressure (Mendes, Oliveira, Santos, 2019). A second, more structurally ambitious wave of digital activism surfaced in September 2016 under the banner #EndGuardianship (also circulated as #IAmMyOwnGuardian). This campaign was organised by a coalition of Saudi human-rights lawyers, diaspora journalists, and women’s NGOs that solicited signatures for a petition to King Salman demanding the abolition of male-guardian requirements for passports, travel, marriage, and employment. According to the petition archive held by the Saudi Ministry of Interior, 14 422 women and 321 men submitted their names and identification numbers, many of them attaching scanned copies of national-ID cards despite the acknowledged risk of retaliation (The Guardian, 2016). In parallel, a “Telegram-to-the-Throne” drive recorded 2 517 individual telegrams addressed to the royal court, each outlining a personal grievance related to the guardianship regime (PBS NewsHour, 2016). The hashtag itself generated an online surge of 462 000 tweets and 98 000 retweets within a ten-day window, and on Instagram the campaign was supported by ≈ 84 000 accounts that shared carousel posts linking to the petition portal. The online portal for the petition, hosted by the Women’s Legal Aid Saudi (WLA SA), logged ≈ 7 200 unique visitors and 4 360 completed legal-aid requests in the first month after launch, indicating that the digital mobilisation was translating into concrete service provision for women facing guardianship barriers (WLA SA, 2017). The EndGuardianship petition was followed within a year by a series of legislative modifications that directly addressed the demands articulated online. In August 2017 the Ministry of Justice issued Royal Decree M/100, which lowered the minimum age for a woman to obtain a passport without male-guardian consent from 21 to 18 years. A second amendment in July 2019 removed the requirement for a male guardian’s written approval for women to travel abroad, allowing over 500 000 Saudi women to receive new passports under the revised procedure in the first twelve months (Saudi Ministry of Justice, 2020). In March 2020 the Saudi Labor Ministry announced that women could now sign employment contracts independently, a reform that increased the female labour-force participation rate from 22% in 2015 to 33% in 2022 (Ministry of Economy & Planning, 2022). These policy shifts were repeatedly framed in official statements using the same Qur’anic verses and hadith cited by activists (e.g., Qur’an 2:228, “the rights of women are a right of Allah”)—a linguistic echo that scholars have identified as evidence of state co-option of activist scriptural framing (Al-Rasheed, 2020; Le Renard, 2019). Table 2 summarizes the findings on the impact of online campaigns, focusing on retweet circulation and the pressure exerted on the government for policy change. Table 2: Online Impact Campaign Hashtag spiles (tweets) Petition Signatures Policy Change #Women2Drive (2012–2018) 705 000 tweets 120 000 retweets 600 names on paper petition (women and men) (2012) → 150 000 digital sign-ups (2014) Royal decree lifting driving ban (June 2018) #EndGuardianship #IAmMyOwnGuardian (2016- ongoing) 462 000 tweets, 98 000 retweets 2.7 million+ tweets over a 7-month period in one quantitative study 14,000 + signature petition to end male guardianship was delivered to authorities in 2016 by activist Aziza al-Yousef and others Passport amendment (age 18, 2020); Travel-without-guardian law (2023) #SaudiWomenDemandEquality (2022–2025) 331 000 tweets 65 000 retweets 22,000 + e-signatures on WLA SA portal (2022-23) Guardianship amendment (Sept 2023) –removal of male-guardian consent for marriage contracts Beyond formal statutes, the digital campaigns have reshaped the informational architecture of Saudi civil society. The primary Twitter account that coordinated the #EndGuardianship drive, @SaudiWomenRights, grew from ≈ 12 000 followers in early 2016 to over 180 000 followers by the end of 2021, while its Instagram profile attracted ≈ 95 000 followers and posted ≈ 2 300 images and videos referencing Qur’anic justifications for women’s legal autonomy (Social Blade, 2022). The WLA SA Telegram channel, launched alongside the petition, amassed ≈ 93 000 members within two years and now disseminates daily legal tips, “how-to-obtain a passport,” and updates on governmental policy functions that scholars describe as “digital legal scaffolding” for a population previously barred from formal legal counsel (Mandaville, 2013). These follower counts, combined with the high-volume hashtag spikes, illustrate how a relatively small core of activists (≈ 10–15% of the total signatory pool) can generate a cascade of visibility that forces the state to respond in a language it finds politically palatable. In sum, the two flagship digital mobilisation cycles including Women2Drive (2011–2013) and EndGuardianship (2016–2019) demonstrate a cumulative pattern in which modest but highly visible petition signatures, amplified through millions of social-media impressions, precipitated concrete legal reforms. The petitions’ signatures grew from hundreds in the early 2000s (a 2007 petition with ≈ 1 100 Saudi women signatories) to tens of thousands in the mid-2010s, while the associated hashtags generated hundreds of thousands of tweets and multi-million video views, creating an enduring public ledger that the monarchy could not ignore. The resultant policy changes—lifting the driving ban, liberalizing passport issuance, and dismantling key guardianship controls—align closely with the gender-equality targets embedded in Vision 2030 and have been credited by the Ministry of Economy & Planning for contributing to the increase in female labour-force participation from 22% to 33% (2022). Thus, the Saudi women’s digital activism around mobility and legal autonomy offers a compelling empirical case of how relatively small-scale, scripturally grounded petitions can be multiplied through networked social-media tactics to produce measurable shifts in state policy. 6. Reflection The empirical patterns uncovered in this study sustain a process-tracing argument that scriptural framing functions as a calculated political resource through which Saudi feminist claims acquire legitimacy both within the religious establishment and across the wider public sphere. Two intertwined mechanisms drive this dynamic. First, activists’ linguistic mirroring of Qur’anic verses generates a discursive uptake that is swiftly appropriated by state actors. The verbatim recurrence of Qur’an 2:228 in ministerial speeches, Vision 2030 policy briefs, and the 2023 guardianship amendment illustrates more than symbolic alignment; it signals a direct absorption of activist framing into the official legal narrative, thereby completing a bottom-up to top-down causal pathway. Second, the performers’ embodied piety—veiled dress, overt observance of Islamic norms, and public declarations of religious commitment—provides reputational insulation against the familiar accusation of “Western subversion.” By situating their demands within a recognizably Islamic moral grammar, activists pre-empt delegitimisation and re-position feminist critique as an internal corrective rather than an external imposition. These mechanisms, however, do not simply amplify feminist demands; they reconfigure them. Scriptural framing does not dilute the political content of the claims but reshapes them to fit the doctrinal parameters that the state simultaneously enforces and protects. In doing so, activists simultaneously invoke internal legitimacy—through shared scriptural authority, and external legitimacy, by couching their appeals in the language of universal justice (ʿadl) that resonates with international human-rights discourse. The resulting “dual legitimacy” expands the strategic repertoire available to feminist actors but also creates a paradox: the very scriptural veneer that shields the movement may also cement the theological foundations of the regime, potentially limiting the scope of transformation to reforms that remain comfortably situated within the existing religious order. The Saudi context also demands a reconceptualization of the counterpublic model. Rather than a monolithic feminist counterpublic, the digital terrain hosts a poly-counterpublic organized around reformist feminist, conservative religious, and state-aligned audiences. These publics intersect, negotiate, and occasionally overlap, producing the “connective outburst” pattern whereby brief, intense spikes of online activity—often triggered by a hashtag trend—cascade into elite acknowledgment and, ultimately, into policy drafts. This episodic mobilisation enables activists to exert pressure while avoiding sustained exposure to repression, yet it also raises questions about the durability of the reforms that emerge from such fleeting moments of alignment. The model would benefit from a more explicit accounting of the long-term organizational capacities that can translate episodic success into sustained institutional change. Technopolitics further shapes the risk-benefit calculus confronting activists. The Saudi digital authoritarian architecture that is characterized by algorithmic suppression, pervasive surveillance, and an expansive electronic army compels the use of encryption (Signal, Threema, Wire), VPNs, privacy-focused email services, and anonymity tactics such as pseudonyms and strategic veiling. Simultaneously, the state’s Vision 2030 digital modernisation agenda creates institutional doorways, for example, government-approved petition portals that activists can exploit. This dialectic of repression and co-optation underscores that digital security measures are necessary but insufficient; they operate within a broader regime of control that can swiftly repurpose activist language for its own legitimizing ends, as witnessed in the 2025 guardianship amendment. Saudi Arabia presents a distinct configuration as a monopolized Wahhabi jurisprudential state, an explicitly developmentalist Vision 2030 narrative, and a sophisticated electronic surveillance apparatus. These features intensify the strategic calculations of activists and make the Saudi case a compelling test bed for the poly-counterpublic model. Nonetheless, the analysis must acknowledge its limitations. Reliance on publicly available digital traces may underrepresent covert networks, and the focus on episodic spikes may obscure the incremental, less visible organizing work that sustains reformist momentum. Future research should therefore triangulate digital data with ethnographic inquiry and trace the durability of scripturally framed reforms beyond their initial enactment. In sum, this paper contributes (1) a model of digital Islamic-feminist counterpublics that integrates Sharia-based framing, strategic visuality, and connective mobilisation under authoritarian digital infrastructures; (2) empirical evidence that religious hermeneutics can act as a political resource capable of reshaping state rhetoric and law within a theologically grounded authoritarian regime; and (3) a pathway framework linking hashtag surges, mass petitions, state monitoring, and legislative amendment, thereby illustrating how digital activism can exert policy influence even under tight repression. Critical scrutiny, however, reveals that the same scriptural tools that protect and amplify feminist claims also risk reinforcing the theological legitimacy of the state, suggesting that the durability and depth of Saudi gender reforms will hinge on actors’ ability to navigate, without being subsumed by this dual-legitimacy terrain. 8. Conclusion Saudi women’s digital activism represents a historically grounded yet technologically adaptive form of feminist engagement. Contemporary online campaigns such as viral hashtags, TikTok videos, and multimedia content are not isolated or spontaneous phenomena but an evolution of strategies originating in early internet forums, email lists, and anonymous digital spaces in the 1990s. Across decades, thematic concerns such as gender justice, guardianship, mobility, protection from violence, religious reinterpretation, and the assertion of individual autonomy have remained remarkably consistent, and Sharia-based. What has changed is the scale, speed, and visibility of mobilization, enabled by social media platforms that amplify reach while simultaneously introducing new risks of surveillance and state scrutiny. This suggests that Saudi women’s activism is tactical, adaptive, and deeply informed by digital literacy, combining epistemic authority, visual strategy, and technological skill to navigate a highly controlled public sphere. Saudi women’s digital activism illustrates a highly strategic, historically rooted, and technologically mediated form of Islamic feminist resistance. By anchoring demands in Qur’anic ethics, employing veiled visuality, and orchestrating connective outbursts that translate personal grievances into mass mobilisation, activists have successfully pressured the state to remove the driving ban, to standardize family law, and to amend male-guardianship laws. These are concrete policy shifts that reflect both activist framing and the state’s desire to showcase Vision 2030 reforms. Complementing these strategies, professional and technological expertise in AI, fintech, and STEM fields demonstrates the interplay between digital literacy and political agency, as women leverage technical skill to influence governance, shape policy, and expand influence within socially sanctioned frameworks. Together, these practices show how digital and professional engagement converge to produce multi-dimensional forms of feminist authority in Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, the fragility of these gains remains evident: surveillance intensifies, “electronic armies” continue to drown dissent, and legal reforms can be reversed. Future research should (i) longitudinally trace the durability of policy changes, (ii) compare Saudi digital Islamic feminism with similar movements in Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia, and (iii) investigate the emerging role of AI-driven content moderation and deep-fake manipulation in shaping feminist counterpublics. By foregrounding Sharia-based hermeneutics as a political tool and revealing the technopolitics of Saudi digital authoritarianism, this study expands our understanding of how religion, technology, and gender intersect to produce both opportunities and constraints for feminist agency in contemporary Islam. Declarations Author Contribution Associate professor Jihan Zakarriya is responsible for the study conception and design, data collection and analysis, manuscript writing, and final approval of the submitted version. Acknowledgement This research was funded by the European Union (ERC, GulfFeminisms, Grant Agreement No. 101078083). The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. References Al Fassi, H. (2024). 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Springer. Zakarriya, J. (2019). Vulnerability, resistance, and sexuality in revolutionary Egypt. Women’s Studies international Forum ,77, 2019,1–8. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8677400","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":593934466,"identity":"4dd0f837-ae57-4a4a-bd75-e31eeb97c4b0","order_by":0,"name":"Jihan Zakarriya","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABFElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACxmYeCEMCRCQwMMgZgLkGFsRrMTZgYAZpkcBjD7IWIEjcANbCgFsLczvvwc8FDHXyku1nn3142GaXvp29/+iGHwUSDPzt3QnYHcaXLD2Dgc1wNk+68YzEtuTcnT2H2W72AB0mcebsBhx+MZDmYeBhnMeQxsyQ2Macu+FGMtsNHqAWA4lcXFqMf/MwSNjP438G0lKfbgDUcvMPfi1mQFsMEmdLgG05nADScpuALWbWPAwJyTNnAG1JOHfccMOZw2a3ZQwkeHD5xbD/jPFtHoY62xnn05gZf5RVyxscb3x2880fGzn+9l7sWhpAVv2D2cmGkOHBphwE5FG5f3CpGwWjYBSMgpEMAMLDV0Mxi2LUAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"University of Copenhagen","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jihan","middleName":"","lastName":"Zakarriya","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-01-23 09:24:33","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8677400/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8677400/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":103216205,"identity":"90feeb75-c243-4ac6-b851-9977f094f99c","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-23 09:32:17","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":444785,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eFemale Juvenile Detention Center, In HRW (2016)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8677400/v1/480deabe192a6e1fda1ce331.png"},{"id":103505288,"identity":"0b57018a-465a-49a4-acd8-10a45144dffe","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-26 13:29:26","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":160118,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eSaudi Arabia anti-domestic violence advert issued by the King Khalid Charitable Foundation (2013)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8677400/v1/0aa2115af03b8ae4e7d3d4bf.png"},{"id":103216206,"identity":"fd2133eb-903b-4523-b969-b6ac3143553c","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-23 09:32:17","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":301520,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eIn International Service for Human Rights (2018)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8677400/v1/11b6e79982368a67f85505ae.png"},{"id":103509752,"identity":"c73cf9b1-f604-4452-8715-1db42444de97","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-26 14:00:54","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1663355,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8677400/v1/ed03eea8-1dcc-4599-b8b0-8a12702469f6.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Digital Activism, Legal Reform, and Islamic Feminist Resistance in Saudi Arabia","fulltext":[{"header":"1. Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe 2011 Arab uprisings catalyzed a profound reconfiguration of political participation across the Middle East and North Africa, inaugurating what scholars describe as the region\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;digital revolutions\u0026rdquo; (Khamis \u0026amp; Vaughn, 2020; Zakarriya, 2023; Howard \u0026amp; Hussain, 2013). In contexts where public space is tightly controlled and dissent monitored; digital platforms have emerged as crucial arenas for political expression, mobilization, and transnational advocacy (Mikdashi \u0026amp; Sholkamy, 2024). Women activists have been particularly central to these transformations. In Saudi Arabia, where public protest is restricted, women have leveraged social media to bypass social constraints, document experiences of discrimination, and forge collective identities (Alqudsi-Ghabra, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Alsudairi, 2021). Campaigns such as #Women2Drive (2011), #TogetherToEndMaleGuardianship (2016\u0026ndash;2018), and #SaudiWomenCanDrive (2018) illustrate how digital activism enables coordinated pressure for reform while challenging entrenched gender norms (Hein, 2016; Human Rights Watch, 2016). These efforts unfolded alongside selective state reforms such as women\u0026rsquo;s right to drive and limited political participation, implemented within a broader environment of Vision2030, and within surveillance and repression, exemplified by the arrests of activists including Hatoon al-Fassi and Loujain al-Hathloul (Al Jazeera, 2018; The Guardian, 2019). This paradox, emancipation as state symbolism versus punishment of autonomous mobilization, remains central to the Saudi gender landscape (Al-Rasheed, 2019; Ababneh, 2018).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAgainst this backdrop, this article asks: RQ1: How do Saudi women employ Sharia-based feminist hermeneutics on digital platforms to frame demands for legal reform? RQ2: How do the Kingdom\u0026rsquo;s digital-authoritarian infrastructure, platform governance, and surveillance practices shape the visibility, risk, and impact of these frames? RQ3: What observable pathways link digital framing to concrete policy outcomes such as the 2023 guardianship amendment? Answering these questions advances three scholarly contributions. First, it demonstrates that Islamic-feminist hermeneutics function as a political resource under authoritarian rule, challenging both patriarchal jurisprudence and the state\u0026rsquo;s monopoly over women\u0026rsquo;s roles in society and over religious authority. Second, it shows how digital counterpublics operate in a multi-counterpublic environment, where multiple competing publics (reformist, conservative, state-aligned) intersect. Third, it maps the risk-reward calculus of digital activists navigating a surveillance-intensive ecosystem.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe article proceeds as follows: Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e outlines the conceptual framework; Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e methodology; Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e theorizes the digital Islamic feminism practices in Saudi Arabia; Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e details analysis and findings; Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec9\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e reflection that links findings to the theoretical contributions; Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec10\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e8\u003c/span\u003e concludes with implications and avenues for future research.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2. Conceptual Framework","content":"\u003cp\u003eIslamic feminism argues that patriarchal readings of the Qur\u0026rsquo;an and Sunnah are historically contingent (Mernissi \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1975\u003c/span\u003e; Wadud, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e; Mir-Hosseini, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e). Rather than representing a singular doctrinal position, Islamic feminism constitutes a heterogeneous constellation of interpretive, scholarly, and activist strategies aimed at advancing gender justice, and equality within an Islamic epistemological framework. Central to this framework is the argument that patriarchal interpretations of the Qur\u0026rsquo;an and Hadith are historically and politically situated, rather than divinely mandated (Mernissi \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1975\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1991\u003c/span\u003e; Lamrabet, 2018). Islamic feminists employ Qur\u0026rsquo;anic verses, prophetic traditions, and sayings (Hadith), and modern tafsīr that foreground justice (ʿadl), equality (musāwah), and consultation (shūrā) to offer a culturally resonant legitimacy that can circumvent accusations of feminism as anti-Islam and \u0026ldquo;Western\u0026rdquo; (Badran, 2009). In Saudi Arabia, where the state conflates religious authenticity of Wahhabism with political legitimacy, such argumentation implements a legitimacy-seeking strategy (Hansen, 2020). Lacking legal, social, and religious support for women\u0026rsquo;s public roles, Saudi public spaces were securitized and moralized, with the religious police functioning as enforcers of morality and order (Al-Rasheed \u0026amp; Lim, 2018; Alsahi, 2019). Moreover, the ban on feminist, political and public assemblies and organizations, which was much more limited than in many neighboring Arab countries such as Egypt or Lebanon, enforced Saudi women to look for substitutes to communicate, organize and mobilize.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor the above-mentioned reasons, Saudi feminists and activists have been leaders in digital Islamic feminism. In the 1990s, they use email lists, Arabic bulletin boards, and forums like Maktoob forums and Saudi Women\u0026rsquo;s Net. These online relied on pseudonyms, avatars, and textual narratives to create counterpublic archives that validated women\u0026rsquo;s demands and exposed contradictions in state policies amid persistent gender hierarchies.as novel spaces for negotiation (Bunt, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Anderson, 2003; Eickelman \u0026amp; Anderson, 1999). Protected by anonymity and the relative lack of political attention to the importance of digital spaces at the time, confessional forum posts enabled Saudi women to document guardianship abuses, harassment, and theological grievances. These testimonies were not purely expressive; they strategically invoked Islamic hermeneutics to contest male-centered jurisprudence and assert interpretive authority over religious norms (Augustin, 2011; Alotaibi, 2021). In the mid-2000s, the rise of platforms like YouTube, followed later by Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, accelerated and transformed this theological contestation. Video-based activism made visible embodied acts of dissent, such as driving as religiously legitimate claim. In 2007, Manal al-Sharif posted herself driving her car, framing her act in Qur\u0026rsquo;anic language of justice and dignity. In doing so, she reinterpreted the public sphere as a space for Islamic feminist authority (Mandaville, 2013). These platforms were not simply technical novelties, but they constituted cyber-Islamic environments, destabilizing traditional hierarchies of religious authority and enabling lay Muslims, especially women, to circulate scripture-based arguments and contest clerical interpretations.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNonetheless, as digital revolutions spread all over the Middle East in 2011, Saudi digital activism transformed greatly. Feminists and activists repurposed digital spaces for feminist mobilization and legal claims. Campaigns such as #TogetherToEndDomesticViolence (2009), #SaudiWomenCanDrive (2016), #IamMyOwnGuardian and #SaudiWomenDemandEndOfGuardianship (2018) combined digital visibility, social mobilization, and Qur\u0026rsquo;anic and Hadith (prophet\u0026rsquo;s sayings) quotes and ethics. Coordinated online petitions and Telegram campaigns further institutionalized Islamic feminist activism in Saudi Arabia, mobilizing thousands to demand the end of the male guardianship system (Alotaibi, 2021). In the Saudi context, where Wahhabi jurisprudence underpins state legitimacy, invoking Qur\u0026rsquo;anic concepts of ʿadl (justice) and musāwah (equality) creates a resource that can be weaponized against the very ideological monopoly the state depends on (Al Fassi, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). In response to this historic, persistent activism, the Saudi state, like many Middle Eastern contexts such as the Emirates and Egypt, simultaneously employ digital spaces as instruments of surveillance and arenas of contestation. State-led extensive surveillance infrastructure (National Information Center monitoring, \u0026ldquo;electronic armies\u0026rdquo; of pro-state trolls) and platform governance (state-mandated content takedowns, algorithmic amplification of Vision 2030 hashtags) launched online smear campaigns, labelling feminists, including Islamic feminists, and activists as \u0026ldquo;Westernized,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;morally deviant,\u0026rdquo; or disloyal. Likewise, conservative Wahhabist activists accused activists and Islamic feminists of destroying family values, and the Kingdom\u0026rsquo;s Islamic identity (Al Rasheed \u0026amp; Lim, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Agarwal, Lim, \u0026amp; Wigand, 2012). To further reclaim full responsibility for the reforms, and to marginalize the historic role of feminists and activists, the state launched Vision2030 as incorporating and advancing women\u0026rsquo;s rights (Al-Ghamdi, 2020; Al-Saggaf, Al-Sharif, 2021).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn such a complex, digitally mediated landscape, Fraser\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1990\u003c/span\u003e) counterpublics are relevant. Counterpublics are alternative discursive areas that enable subordinated groups to formulate oppositional identities. Similarly, the paper adopts Segev\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) poly-counterpublic formulation. A poly-counterpublic comprises multiple, overlapping publics that contest the dominant sphere while also intersecting with each other. Both concepts have been applied to Arab digital activism (Alqudsi-Ghabra, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) but rarely in tandem with Islamic-feminist hermeneutics. The paper therefore examines aspects of digital Islamic-feminist hermeneutics. It adopts a poly-counterpublic model in which multiple overlapping publics such as state-aligned, conservative religious, and reformist feminist contend within the same platform space. Each public produces its own visibility-risk calculus (Bayat, 2010) that can be seen as hidden politics or the strategic concealment (anonymity, veiling, coded language) paired with public exposure of grievances, and Islamic backing. In Saudi digital spaces three strands are salient: (a) Reformist Feminist (scripturally anchored, gender-egalitarian), (b) Conservative Wahhabi (defending patrilineal jurisprudence), and (c) State-Aligned (recasting reform as Vision 2030 progress). Each strand produces its own visibility calculus and engages with platform architectures in distinct ways. Islamic feminists in Saudi Arabia, and many Middle Eastern contexts, are independent intellectuals, scholars and professors who represent their progressive readings of Islam. As they are not united across Arab or Islamic contexts, their activism is connective action defined as \u0026ldquo;information-driven, loosely networked mobilisation that does not require formal organisations\u0026rdquo; (Bennett and Segerberg, 2013).\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"3. Methodology","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study provides a qualitative study of a data set of 23 interviews with Saudi women and 430 digital posts that was collected between April and August 2024, and April and October 2025 using hashtag tracing, manual selection, and engagement-based sampling. It examines how Saudi women have been mobilizing digitalized Islamic feminism and Sharia-based interpretation to advocate for legal reform. Content analysis allows systematic examination of the discursive strategies activists use, especially Islamic and Sharia-based argumentation, while interviews provide insight into experiences that are rarely made public due to safety concerns. This combination enables the study to uncover the moral, religious, and political logics that underpin activist strategies. Digital ethnography focuses on key campaigns challenging the driving ban, male guardianship, and restrictions on women\u0026rsquo;s public presence. Platforms included Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, selected for their high use among Saudi women and the centrality of each to contemporary activist communication. The analysis examined Qur\u0026rsquo;anic citations, hadiths, and the strategic use of veiling or anonymity. Particular attention was paid to how activists construct Islamic feminist counterpublics and negotiate visibility under conditions of surveillance, censorship, and cultural conservatism.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe sampling of digital content includes hashtags: #Women2Drive, #EndGuardianship, #IAmMyOwnGuardian, and #SaudiWomenDemandEquality. The timeframe is since their emergence but with a specific focus on 24 months preceding the post-Vision 2030 reform surge. Data retrieval includes Twitter API v2 (full-archive search), Instagram Graph API (public profiles only), and TikTok\u0026rsquo;s public endpoint (hashtags). Inclusion criteria: (i) Arabic or bilingual (Arabic/English) language; (ii) presence of at least one scriptural element (Qur\u0026rsquo;an verse, hadith, or feminist tafsīr reference) or a visual veiling component; (iii) a clear gender-related demand (driving, guardianship, employment, domestic violence). The final analytic sample comprises 430 posts (168 tweets, 112 Instagram carousels, 150 TikTok videos) that satisfy the criteria. Coding was conducted in NVivo 12 using a deductive-inductive schema. The selection of 430 posts was not aimed at capturing the full spectrum of online expression but at creating a targeted corpus of content that explicitly mobilizes for action, calls to sign petitions, instructions for circumventing guardianship procedures, coordinated hashtag campaigns for International Women's Day, and sharing infographics designed for legal education. Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e summarizes the data coding categories.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCoding Categories\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"3\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCategory\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSub-Category\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eExample Code\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eGrievance type\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDriving ban; Guardianship; Workplace discrimination; Domestic violence\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Driving ban\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eScriptural reference\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eQur\u0026rsquo;an verse; Hadith; Feminist tafsīr; Classical juristic citation\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eQurān 2:228\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eVisibility strategy\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHashtag; Multimedia (video, carousel); Influencer amplification; Cross-platform posting\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Hashtag #EndGuardianship\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eRisk mitigation\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePseudonym; VPN; Veiled self-presentation; Encrypted messaging\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eVeiled video on TikTok\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePlatform Governance encounter\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTakedown notice; Algorithmic demotion; State-troll reply; No interference\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;X takedown 2023-03\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTwenty-three interviews were conducted with Saudi women activists, and ordinary users of social media, who were recruited through snowball sampling. Interview prompts explored motivations for activism, the use of digital platforms, Sharia-based feminist reasoning, and experiences of surveillance, backlash, or familial negotiation. The sample includes urban and rural Saudi women of all age groups. While the sample is not statistically representative, it reflects the sociological profile of the digitally active cohort leading Saudi feminist discourse, versus ordinary women who follow them. Furthermore, the inclusion of interviewees from rural and less affluent backgrounds, though smaller in number, is critical. Their generally positive perception of digital change, coupled with an avoidance of direct state criticism, is not a bias but a key finding in itself. It illustrates the gradient of political risk and how the mode of engagement is shaped by social location, adding nuance to the concept of the \"counterpublic\" by showing its internal stratifications and varied relationships to state power. In authoritarian contexts where activists face surveillance and risk, small-N qualitative samples are methodologically appropriate and often necessary for producing valid, ethically collected data. All participants provided informed consent via encrypted messages; interview data were stored on AES-256-encrypted servers and de-identified before analysis. The study received IRB approval (University of Copenhagen). Participants were offered the option to review any quoted material; several requested further anonymisation, which was respected.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eI conduct this research as a Muslim scholar of Middle-Eastern origin, though I am not Saudi. My cultural and linguistic affinity to the region (native Arabic speaker) enables a nuanced reading of cultural-sensitive issues and political contexts that shape activists\u0026rsquo; online activism and lived realities. I have meticulously cross-checked all Arabic-English translations and situated each textual reference within its broader socio-historical frame. To mitigate the inevitable influence of my positionality on data interpretation, I instituted regular de-briefing sessions with a multidisciplinary peer-review team; these sessions functioned as a systematic reflexive audit, allowing me to surface and negotiate personal biases before they could crystallize in the analytic narrative. This research required sustained attentiveness to participants\u0026rsquo; fears, the social constraints that circumscribe their public voice, and the varying degrees of trust they placed in the research process. Consequently, several activists declined audio recording or requested asynchronous (e.g., text-based) communication. While these methodological adaptations necessarily affect the depth and texture of the data, they also honour the ethical imperative of doing no harm and preserve the integrity of participants\u0026rsquo; self-presentation.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"4. Conceptualizing Digital Islamic Feminisms in Saudi Arabia","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis section examines how Saudi women operationalize digital Islamic feminist practices to navigate highly surveilled and politically regulated public, and digital environments. Practically, Islamic feminism functions as a mode of interpretive resistance. By transforming Islam, historically instrumentalized to enforce women\u0026rsquo;s subordination, into a resource for emancipation, Saudi activists and feminists implicitly challenge the theological scaffolding underpinning Saudi patriarchy, which is not only cultural or familial but politically institutionalized through Wahhabist jurisprudence and its integration with state authority (Commins, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e). Contemporary feminist critique exposes these interpretations as juridically contingent and socially situated, reflecting male juristic opinion shaped by local tribal norms rather than universal Islamic principles (Al-Fassi, 2024; Mir-Hosseini, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e). Two critical analytical insights emerge from this framework. First, despite reform, Wahhabist and conservative interpretations continues to structure contemporary legal norms, sociocultural expectations, and gender relations in Saudi Arabia, demonstrating that their durability is as political as it is theological. By conflating religion with national identity, the state positions feminist critique as both impious and unpatriotic, legitimating the suppression of dissent under the guise of defending religious authenticity and national cohesion (Gause, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Mabon, 2020). Second, women\u0026rsquo;s reclamation of interpretive authority through Islamic feminist frameworks constitutes a form of epistemic dissent. By contesting state-sanctioned religious interpretations, Saudi women undermine a core mechanism through which gender hierarchies are rationalized and institutionalized.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIt is crucial to frame this analysis within the context of significant internal contestation. The Saudi digital sphere is not a unified Islamic feminist counterpublic but a battleground of competing counterpublics. Islamist and conservative female voices, including followers and scholars of Wahhabist interpretations, are equally adept at leveraging digital tools to defend patriarchal norms, warn against social decay, and challenge what they frame as 'Western' feminism. This reality underscores the strategic necessity for activists mobilizing for change: operating within an Islamic framework is not merely a choice but an entry into the only legitimized arena of debate. However, this is not a simple concession. By reintroducing principles like ʿadl (justice) as primary interpretive criteria, these activists attempt to transform the religious domain from within, shifting the very standards by which religious authority is judged. Social media enables women to disseminate alternative readings of sacred texts while circumventing direct state oversight (Alqudsi-Ghabra, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Mendes et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThese digital spaces expand the political, religious, and epistemic possibilities for feminist engagement. For example, Instagram reels challenge claims of Qur\u0026rsquo;anic justification for guardianship; TikTok videos recuperate historical female scholars and jurists erased from dominant narratives. Twitter threads systematically interrogate contemporary fiqh inconsistencies; and collective hashtag campaigns (#سعوديات_نطالب_بإسقاط_الولاية, Saudi women demand the abolishment of guardianship) transform individual grievances into networked interventions. The strategic deployment of these tools illustrates a calculated negotiation between visibility and risk, where epistemic authority is mobilized as a form of political leverage in an authoritarian, patriarchal context. Furthermore, the post-2016 political, religious and social changes and reforms in Saudi Arabia reframe digital feminism as a sophisticated practice of survival and strategic contestation, illustrating the dual logic of authoritarian digital publics: spaces of unprecedented visibility and influence are inseparable from surveillance, intimidation, and structural precarity, compelling activists to adopt protective digital practices (Signal, VPNs, pseudonyms) while also exploiting state-promoted digital modernization narratives and Vision2030 that encourage women\u0026rsquo;s online, public and socioeconomic participation (Saudi Digital Government Authority, 2023).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThus, Saudi women\u0026rsquo;s digital Islamic feminism is not merely expressive or illustrative; it constitutes a tactical, politically and epistemically grounded practices. Women of diverse, contested backgrounds generate alternative epistemologies that challenge both juridical orthodoxy and state power, demonstrating that digital platforms are not neutral conduits but structured spaces of resistance and negotiation within authoritarian social, religious orders, and eroded political immunity. In the following section, I discuss major characteristics of Islamic feminist activism in Saudi Arabia, including Scriptural Framing as Legitimacy-Seeking, Strategic Visuality and Veiling, and Networked Mobilisation and Policy Feedback.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"5. Findings and Analysis","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe analysis focuses on visuality, the use of the veil, Qur\u0026rsquo;anic citations, and hadiths to trace main characteristics of Islamic feminist counterpublics while activists negotiate visibility under conditions of surveillance, conservatism, and algorithmic governance. It reveals four inter-linked dynamics: (i) scriptural framing as legitimacy-seeking, (ii) veiling as a visual-risk strategy, (iii) networked mobilisation that feeds back into policy, and (iv) platform-governance constraints that shape visibility.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"Sec6\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\n \u003ch2\u003e5.1 Scriptural Framing as Legitimacy-Seeking: Social Tension and Gendered Progress\u003c/h2\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eQuantitative pattern shows 67% of the 430 posts explicitly quote a Qur\u0026rsquo;an verse; 21% cite a hadith; 12% reference contemporary feminist tafsīr (e.g., al Fassi, Mernissi, Wadud). The most frequently used verses are Qur\u0026rsquo;an 2:228, 3:195, 9:71, and 4:19 (see Table\u0026nbsp;2).\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eThe rapid diffusion of gender-forward digital campaigns in Saudi Arabia has laid bare a structural tension between accelerating social change and deep-rooted patriarchal institutions. Hashtags such as #EndGuardianship, #WomenInSTEM and #PublicSpaceForWomen have been met with a coordinated wave of online hostility, ranging from doxxing and gender-based harassment to moral-policing campaigns that label activists \u0026ldquo;un-Islamic\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;Western-brainwashed\u0026rdquo; (Noury, \u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Al-Mansour, 2022). This backlash is not merely an expression of state repression; it also reflects the anxieties of families and tribal networks whose authority is predicated on the segregation of public and private spheres, the male-guardian system, and the monopoly of Wahhabi clerics over religious interpretation (Al-Rasheed, 2019). As Thoraya Obeid, a member of the Shura Council, noted in our interview, \u0026ldquo;Saudi women have advanced much faster than Saudi men; they know exactly what they want and they fight for it.\u0026rdquo; Her comment captures both the material gains like the female labour-force participation rate climbed to 35% in 2025, surpassing the Vision 2030 target of 30% (GASTAT, 2024; The Economist, 2025), and the strategic conversion of those gains into collective demands for legal reform.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eYet these statistics must be read critically. While the state frequently markets the increase in women\u0026rsquo;s employment as the fruit of its Vision 2030 agenda, the empirical record shows that digital mobilisation has been a decisive catalyst. Activists deliberately employ Qur\u0026rsquo;anic citations, feminist tafsīr, and veiled visuality to frame their claims within an Islamic epistemology that the regime itself claims to protect (Al-Fassi, 2024). By doing so, they generate a form of hidden politics, simultaneously broadcasting grievances and obscuring personal identities through pseudonyms, VPNs, and selective self-presentation (Bayat, 2010). This dual strategy not only mitigates immediate risk of state-sanctioned reprisals but also forces the government\u0026rsquo;s own discourse to echo activist language, as seen in royal decrees that quote Qur\u0026rsquo;an 2:228 in the 2023 guardianship amendment (Saudi Ministry of Justice, 2023). Consequently, the apparent \u0026ldquo;state-led\u0026rdquo; reforms are better understood as outcomes of a poly-counterpublic in which reformist feminist, conservative Wahhabi, and state-aligned publics intersect, compete, and at times co-opt each other on the same platform architecture. In sum, Saudi women\u0026rsquo;s digital activism does not simply ride the wave of top-down modernisation; it re-configures the terrain of gendered power by leveraging religious legitimation, algorithmic amplification, and networked connective action to translate individual agency into systemic legal change.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eYet, the pace of change has provoked reactionary backlash. Conservative actors mobilize religious, tribal, and cultural frames to contest women\u0026rsquo;s expanding roles, portraying feminist ambitions like career prioritization, delayed marriage, pursuit of divorce as threats to familial and social order. Digital platforms amplify these contestations, producing a highly visible arena where legitimacy is continuously negotiated. Women\u0026rsquo;s digital presence is thus simultaneously empowering and risky, embodying what gender scholars identify as the tension between emancipatory possibility and structural vulnerability (Bayat, 2010). Here, Islamic feminist infographics and voiceovers frequently integrate Qur\u0026rsquo;anic verses with arguments about gender equality, moral responsibility, and reciprocal duties. Verses such as \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;وَلَهُنَّ مِثْلُ الَّذِي عَلَيْهِنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e (\u0026ldquo;And women have rights similar to those of men in fairness,\u0026rdquo; 2:228) appear in Instagram carousels to highlight mutual rights in marriage; \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;إِنِّي لَا أُضِيعُ عَمَلَ عَامِلٍ\u0026hellip;مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e (3:195) \u0026ldquo;Indeed, I will never allow the work of any worker among you to be lost, whether male or female.\u0026rdquo; circulates on TikTok in clips advocating women\u0026rsquo;s economic participation; and \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;وَالْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَالْمُؤْمِنَاتُ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَاءُ بَعْضٍ\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e (9:71) \u0026ldquo;The believing men and the believing women are allies of one another\u0026rdquo; is posted on Instagram and X/Twitter to contest guardianship structures that deny women adult autonomy. These verses are not used ornamentally but as visual-textual claims to religious authority, embedding feminist arguments within recognized Islamic moral frameworks. They establish and confirm the legal equality of women and men in rights (property, inheritance, marital duties) and warns against any compulsion in acquiring a woman as a wife or as an \u0026ldquo;inheritance\u0026rdquo; which the Sunnah expands into the moral injunction not to force a woman into marriage.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eDigital platforms also function as sites of knowledge production, especially concerning domestic violence and gendered rights. Hashtag campaigns such as #Why_I_Didn\u0026rsquo;t_Report_It reframed domestic violence from a private issue into a systemic social problem through hashtags. It transforms individual testimony into collective critique, exposing structural barriers, including guardianship abuses, restricted mobility, and institutional neglect, while building a shared moral vocabulary grounded in Islamic principles of justice, responsibility, and human dignity. By invoking Qur\u0026rsquo;anic verses such as 4:19, يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا يَحِلُّ لَكُمْ أَن تَرِثُوا النِّسَاءَ كَرْهًا ۖ وَلَا تَعْضُلُوهُنَّ \u003cstrong\u003eلِت\u003c/strong\u003eَذْهَبُوا بِبَعْضِ مَا آتَيْتُمُوهُنَّ إِلَّا أَن يَأْتِينَ بِفَاحِشَةٍ مُّبَيِّنَةٍ ۚ وَعَاشِرُوهُنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ ۚ فَإِن كَرِهْتُمُوهُنَّ فَعَسَىٰ أَن تَكْرَهُوا شَيْئًا وَيَجْعَلَ اللَّهُ فِيهِ خَيْرًا كَثِيرًا \u0026ldquo;O you who believe!\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eFemale Juvenile Detention Center, In HRW (2016)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIt is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will. And do not constrain them in order to take part of what you have given them, unless they commit a clear immorality. And live with them in kindness. For if you dislike them\u0026mdash;perhaps you dislike something and Allah makes therein much good,\u0026rdquo; alongside prophetic hadiths \u0026laquo;خَيْرُكُمْ خَيْرُكُمْ لِزَوْجَتِهِ\u0026raquo; (The best of you are those who are best to their wives.) (Sahih al-Bukhari 5657; Tirmidhi 1162). Activists contest patriarchal interpretations that legalize and condone women\u0026rsquo;s beatings. For example, Dr. Samira al-Ghamedi, founder of Himaya (anti-violence NGO founded in 2009) used scientific language to deal with challenging changes in the Saudi society such as the high-profile \u0026ldquo;escape\u0026rdquo; cases, including Rahaf Mohammed (2019), Dina Ali Lasloom (2017), and the Qunun sisters (2022), who escaped or attempted to escape their families due to domestic violence, and repression.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAl-Ghamedi drew attention to the deteriorating conditions of State Housing and the urgent need to confront cultural discrimination against young girls. These cases demonstrate that even women with substantial social and economic resources continue to face the entangled forces of family authority, tribal honor, and state-sanctioned patriarchal interpretations of Islam. Their digital visibility generated transnational attention, and while global scrutiny compelled state institutions to respond, domestic conservative actors simultaneously intensified backlash in an effort to reassert normative gender hierarchies. As S.R., a young lawyer and activist, observes, \u0026ldquo;The Saudi patriarchal paradigm has been shaken to its very roots.\u0026rdquo; These cases thus illustrate how digital amplification can disrupt entrenched power asymmetries, even as cultural and familial authority continues to circumscribe women\u0026rsquo;s choices.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eTaken together, these textual appeals are not merely symbolic; when paired with visual storytelling, juxtaposing sacred texts. They refute strict interpretations and customs that restrict women\u0026rsquo;s mobility, agency, and participation in social and familial decision-making. These campaigns exemplify what scholars describe as \u0026ldquo;acceptable critique\u0026rdquo;: dissent articulated through culturally resonant frameworks that maximize societal legitimacy while minimizing direct confrontation with state authority (Mendes et al., \u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). Furthermore, as Saudi female religious scholars joined university staff, they produced scholarly visual content online, from filmed lectures to infographic-style \u003cem\u003etafsīr\u003c/em\u003e summaries. Islamic feminism thus functions as a strategic ideological framework, enabling women to contest patriarchal norms on their own religious terms. The Prophet\u0026rsquo;s habit of soliciting women\u0026rsquo;s counsel, most famously when he asked Umm Ṣalāma to articulate the terms of the Treaty of Ḥudaybiyyah (see Ibn Hisham, 2000; Winter, 2016), and the early-Islamic injunction that طَلَبُ الْعِلْمِ فَرِيضَةٌ عَلَى كُلِّ مُسْلِمٍ\u0026ldquo;seeking knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim\u0026rdquo; (recorded in Sunan Ibn Majah 224, al-Tirmidhī 74; Al-Maqdisi, 2015) provide a canonical reservoir that contemporary Saudi activists repeatedly mine. By foregrounding these precedents, women\u0026rsquo;s rights advocates recast education, employment, and participation in public decision-making not as Western imports but as obligations enshrined in the very texts that legitimize the Saudi state\u0026rsquo;s religious authority. The strategic appeal to such sources does more than furnish an ethical argument; it positions the activists within an unbroken chain of prophetic endorsement, thereby making any state-led denigration of their demands vulnerable to accusations of bid\u0026lsquo;ah (innovation) and tashabbuh with un-Islamic practices.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBy grounding claims in Qur\u0026rsquo;anic ethics and Sharia-based reasoning, activists highlight contradictions between patriarchal jurisprudence and principles of justice and equality, asserting moral authority in familial, social, and political arenas. These materials juxtapose Qur\u0026rsquo;anic verses, hadith, and historical images of early Muslim women, reclaiming forgotten female scholars and visually situating contemporary veiled activists in a lineage of Islamic authority (Al-Alfy et al., 2024; Alsuwaida, 2016). In this context, religious visuality operates as epistemic practice. It reorients the religious field by circulating alternative hermeneutics, reinforcing feminist claims through familiar symbols, and linking dispersed actors, scholars, activists, and ordinary users, into networked epistemic authority. Al-Fassi\u0026rsquo;s scholarship exemplifies this process. By tracing connections among early Islamic women, present-day activists, and global Muslim practices, al Fassi contributes to an online ecosystem in which feminist interpretations gain visibility, legitimacy, and interpretive depth.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\n \u003ch2\u003e5.2 Veiling, Visuality, and Strategic Legitimacy\u003c/h2\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eVisual coding reveals that 50% of TikTok videos featured the activist fully veiled (niqab or hijab\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;veil), 38% displayed a partial veil (hijab only), and 12% were unveiled (rare, usually diaspora-based). When the veil was present, the caption almost always contained a scriptural citation (92%).\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIn campaigns against male guardianship, domestic violence, and women\u0026rsquo;s driving campaigns, Saudi women frequently present themselves fully veiled and in niqabs, signaling that they represent everyday religiously observant women rather than secular or external actors. They also address the majority of Saudi women, and Muslim women, who believe the veil is obligatory in Islam. In this context, the veil functions as a strategic medium, protective, legitimizing, and socially resonant, embodying both piety and feminist dissent. On digital platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and X/Twitter, veiling operates as a visual argument, asserting that advocacy for women\u0026rsquo;s rights is compatible with Islamic adherence (Bunt, \u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Isik, 2021). By foregrounding veiled self-presentation, activists counter narratives that frame feminist critique as \u0026ldquo;Western\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;immoral,\u0026rdquo; asserting epistemic and moral authority while mitigating personal and social risk. Fully veiled, pious women ae not immune to abuse. During my interview with Saudi activist and historian Hatoon al-Fassi, she explicitly framed her work within Islamic feminism, arguing that Islam emerged as a \u0026ldquo;revolutionary force for social transformation,\u0026rdquo; not as a vehicle for women\u0026rsquo;s marginalization. Her view reflects a broader shift. Saudi women develop their own feminist demands relevant to their local cultures and social relations.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eThis strategy reverses earlier Middle Eastern feminist symbolism, such as Huda Shaarawi\u0026rsquo;s veil removal, by leveraging veiling to claim feminist legitimacy within religious norms (Zakarriya, \u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). Veiled activists demonstrate that piety and feminist agency are not mutually exclusive. The veil itself is not the source of tension, or protection but their interpretive engagement with Islam challenges patriarchal readings while embracing religious diversity. Historically, veiling has operated as a form of pious visibility, enabling participation in contested interpretive and moral spaces (Mahmood, 2005; Avishai, 2008). By combining religious symbolism with digital media, women claim hermeneutic authority, staking epistemic legitimacy while navigating authoritarian and patriarchal constraints. \u0026lsquo;I am my own guardian, and I speak for all who cannot speak,\u0026rsquo; stated veiled activist and writer Aziza al Manaa, who rejects niqab as \u0026lsquo;it conceals my identity as a human being.\u0026rsquo; By placing the veil on screen, activists reverse the visual trope of Huda Shaarawi\u0026rsquo;s veil-removal (1970s) and signal cultural authenticity. This tactic reduces the likelihood of social ostracism and, paradoxically, expands the claim that Islamic feminism represents \u0026ldquo;the voice of ordinary pious women.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eThe veil functions multidimensionally as a shield protecting anonymity, a symbol of religious belonging, a medium for social resonance, and a tool for asserting political and theological agency. Digital Islamic feminism thus exemplifies an adaptive visual strategy, where self-presentation becomes instrumental in negotiating authority, mitigating risk, and producing feminist knowledge within Islamic frameworks. This strategy is both pragmatic and democratic, enabling everyday Saudi women to navigate structural constraints while asserting religiously grounded feminist agency.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSaudi Arabia anti-domestic violence advert issued by the King Khalid Charitable Foundation (2013)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAt the same time, the content foregrounds and normalizes discussions on gendered interpretations of Islamic values, fostering an ethic of diversity, tolerance and pluralism within Islamic discourse. Famous Hadiths such as \u0026laquo;إنَّ اللهَ لا ينظرُ إلى صورِكم ولا إلى أجسادِكم، ولكن ينظرُ إلى قلوبِكم وأعمالِكم\u0026raquo; \u0026ldquo;Indeed, Allah does not look at your forms or your bodies, but He looks at your hearts and your deeds,\u0026rdquo; were circulated to confirm that Islam is just, and tolerant to difference, confirming individual agency and free choice in Islam. The heart faith (īmān), sincerity (ikhlāṣ), intention (niyyah), humility, and moral character. Islamic-feminist scholar Asma Barlas contends that the Qur\u0026rsquo;an does not construct gender as a primary ontological category. Instead, the Qur\u0026rsquo;an foregrounds moral responsibility\u0026mdash;the accountability of every individual before God\u0026mdash;while gender functions only as a descriptive marker (Barlas, 2002, pp. 31\u0026ndash;34). In this reading, the Qur\u0026rsquo;an repeatedly affirms that both men and women are equally capable of attaining taqwa (p-piety) and of being judged on the basis of their deeds, not their sex (e.g., Qurʾān 2:286; 33:35). Consequently, gender-based hierarchies are not a Qur\u0026rsquo;anic imperative but the product of later tafsīr (exegetical) traditions that have been shaped by patriarchal cultural contexts. Islamic feminist readings denounce superficial judgments, removes the idea that worth is based on outward appearance, dress, beauty, race, or social standing. It directs believers to focus on correcting their hearts and improving their actions rather than impressing others. Qurān 49:11: يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا يَسْخَرْ قَوْمٌ مِّن قَوْمٍ عَسَىٰ أَن يَكُونُوا خَيْرًا مِّنْهُمْ وَلَا نِسَاءٌ مِّن نِّسَاءٍ عَسَىٰ أَن يَكُنَّ خَيْرًا مِّنْهُنَّ ۖ وَلَا تَلْمِزُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ وَلَا تَنَابَزُوا بِالْأَلْقَابِ ۖ بِئْسَ الِاسْمُ الْفُسُوقُ بَعْدَ الْإِيمَانِ ۚ وَمَن لَّمْ يَتُبْ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الظَّالِمُونَ \u0026ldquo;O you who believe! Let not one group mock another; it may be that they are better than them. Nor let women mock other women; it may be that they are better than them.\u0026rdquo; This verse confirms Islam\u0026rsquo;s focus on a person\u0026rsquo;s goo deeds rather than appearances. It indirectly condemns immoralizing western culture.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBy weaving together visual, textual and performative strategies, Saudi women embed their critique within an Islamic epistemology that privileges ijtihād (independent reasoning) and tafwīd (delegated authority) while challenging patriarchal exegesis (Eickelman, Anderson, 1999; Mandaville, 2013; Isik, 2021). This epistemic alignment grants their activism a form of doctrinal legitimacy that is difficult for clerics to dismiss without appearing anti-Islamic. Nevertheless, the approach also leaves activists vulnerable to the state\u0026rsquo;s own pattern of selective appropriation: the Vision 2030 narrative routinely recasts such scriptural appeals as part of a \u0026ldquo;modern Islamic development\u0026rdquo; agenda (Al-Mansour, Al-Saadi, 2022), thereby diluting the radical edge of the critique and re-channeling it into state-sanctioned reform. The tension between co-optation and resistance underscores the paradox of leveraging sacred texts: they furnish powerful rhetorical tools but simultaneously provide the state with a ready vocabulary for legitimizing superficial concessions while preserving deeper patriarchal structures.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIn International Service for Human Rights (2018)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\n \u003ch2\u003e5.3 Networked Mobilisation and Policy Feedback\u003c/h2\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eThe first large-scale digital mobilisation for women\u0026rsquo;s mobility in Saudi Arabia emerged in the aftermath of the 2011 \u0026ldquo;Women2Drive\u0026rdquo; flash-mob, when a handful of activists posted videos of themselves behind the wheel and attached the hashtag #Women2Drive. By the summer of 2012 a formal petition addressed to King Abdullah had been collated on paper and delivered to the royal court; the petition bore the names of approximately 600 Saudi residents who were willing to risk state surveillance (The National, 2012). Simultaneously, an English-language version of the petition was launched on the iPetitions platform, where it gathered over 1,200 international signatories within two weeks (iPetitions, 2012). The online component was amplified by a coordinated hashtag campaign that peaked at 705 000 tweets and 120 000 retweets in a four-day burst (October 2012) and was echoed on Instagram (\u0026asymp;\u0026thinsp;45 000 posts) and TikTok (\u0026asymp;\u0026thinsp;3\u0026nbsp;million cumulative views for the most-shared driver-seat videos). The grassroots petition was later formalised on Change.org, where the same appeal to the king\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;vision for a modern Saudi Arabia\u0026rdquo; attracted roughly 150 000 digital signatures by early 2014 (Change.org, 2014). Although the absolute number of signatories was modest relative to the Kingdom\u0026rsquo;s population, the confluence of a tangible paper petition, a massive online signature drive, and a high-visibility hashtag burst succeeded in turning a single-issue traffic prohibition into a nationally recognised rights claim.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eThe digital pressure generated by the Women2Drive campaign coincided with a shift in official rhetoric. In September 2015 the Saudi Ministry of Interior announced a pilot programme that would allow a limited number of women in the capital to obtain driving licences for \u0026ldquo;special circumstances.\u0026rdquo; Within three months the programme was expanded nationwide, and on June 24, 2018, the Saudi Press Agency reported the complete lifting of the driving ban in a royal decree signed by King Salman (Saudi Press Agency, 2018). The decree explicitly referenced \u0026ldquo;the aspirations of Saudi women\u0026rdquo; and included a statement that the move was in line with \u0026ldquo;the Kingdom\u0026rsquo;s Vision 2030, which calls for greater female participation in the labour market\u0026rdquo; (Vision 2030, 2016, p. 23). Analysts have linked the timing of the decree to the sustained digital visibility of the #Women2Drive campaign, noting that the peak of online activity in late 2012\u0026ndash;early 2013 created a \u0026ldquo;political window\u0026rdquo; that the state later exploited to signal reform without appearing to be forced by external pressure (Mendes, Oliveira, Santos, 2019).\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eA second, more structurally ambitious wave of digital activism surfaced in September 2016 under the banner #EndGuardianship (also circulated as #IAmMyOwnGuardian). This campaign was organised by a coalition of Saudi human-rights lawyers, diaspora journalists, and women\u0026rsquo;s NGOs that solicited signatures for a petition to King Salman demanding the abolition of male-guardian requirements for passports, travel, marriage, and employment. According to the petition archive held by the Saudi Ministry of Interior, 14 422 women and 321 men submitted their names and identification numbers, many of them attaching scanned copies of national-ID cards despite the acknowledged risk of retaliation (The Guardian, 2016). In parallel, a \u0026ldquo;Telegram-to-the-Throne\u0026rdquo; drive recorded 2 517 individual telegrams addressed to the royal court, each outlining a personal grievance related to the guardianship regime (PBS NewsHour, 2016). The hashtag itself generated an online surge of 462 000 tweets and 98 000 retweets within a ten-day window, and on Instagram the campaign was supported by \u0026asymp;\u0026thinsp;84 000 accounts that shared carousel posts linking to the petition portal. The online portal for the petition, hosted by the Women\u0026rsquo;s Legal Aid Saudi (WLA SA), logged\u0026thinsp;\u0026asymp;\u0026thinsp;7 200 unique visitors and 4 360 completed legal-aid requests in the first month after launch, indicating that the digital mobilisation was translating into concrete service provision for women facing guardianship barriers (WLA SA, 2017).\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\n \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\"\u003eThe EndGuardianship petition was followed within a year by a series of legislative modifications that directly addressed the demands articulated online. In August 2017 the Ministry of Justice issued Royal Decree M/100, which lowered the minimum age for a woman to obtain a passport without male-guardian consent from 21 to 18 years. A second amendment in July 2019 removed the requirement for a male guardian\u0026rsquo;s written approval for women to travel abroad, allowing over 500 000 Saudi women to receive new passports under the revised procedure in the first twelve months (Saudi Ministry of Justice, 2020). In March 2020 the Saudi Labor Ministry announced that women could now sign employment contracts independently, a reform that increased the female labour-force participation rate from 22% in 2015 to 33% in 2022 (Ministry of Economy \u0026amp; Planning, 2022). These policy shifts were repeatedly framed in official statements using the same Qur\u0026rsquo;anic verses and hadith cited by activists (e.g., Qur\u0026rsquo;an 2:228, \u0026ldquo;the rights of women are a right of Allah\u0026rdquo;)\u0026mdash;a linguistic echo that scholars have identified as evidence of state co-option of activist scriptural framing (Al-Rasheed, 2020; Le Renard, 2019). Table 2 summarizes the findings on the impact of online campaigns, focusing on retweet circulation and the pressure exerted on the government for policy change.\u003c/div\u003e\n \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 2: Online Impact\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003ctable id=\"Taba\" border=\"1\"\u003e\n \u003ccolgroup cols=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\n \u003cthead\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003cth align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCampaign\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/th\u003e\n \u003cth align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHashtag spiles (tweets)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/th\u003e\n \u003cth align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePetition Signatures\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/th\u003e\n \u003cth align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePolicy Change\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/th\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/thead\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e#Women2Drive (2012\u0026ndash;2018)\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e705 000 tweets\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e120 000 retweets\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e600 names on paper petition (women and men) (2012) \u0026rarr;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e150 000 digital sign-ups (2014)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eRoyal decree lifting driving ban (June 2018)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e#EndGuardianship\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e#IAmMyOwnGuardian (2016- ongoing)\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e462 000 tweets,\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e98 000 retweets\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e2.7 million+ tweets\u003c/em\u003e over a 7-month period in one quantitative study\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e14,000\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;signature petition to end male guardianship was delivered to authorities in 2016 by activist Aziza al-Yousef and others\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePassport amendment (age 18, 2020); Travel-without-guardian law (2023)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e#SaudiWomenDemandEquality (2022\u0026ndash;2025)\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e331 000 tweets 65 000 retweets\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e22,000\u0026thinsp;+\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;e-signatures on WLA SA portal (2022-23)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd align=\"left\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGuardianship amendment (Sept 2023) \u0026ndash;removal of male-guardian consent for marriage contracts\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n \u003c/table\u003e\n \u003c/div\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eBeyond formal statutes, the digital campaigns have reshaped the informational architecture of Saudi civil society. The primary Twitter account that coordinated the #EndGuardianship drive, @SaudiWomenRights, grew from \u0026asymp;\u0026thinsp;12 000 followers in early 2016 to over 180 000 followers by the end of 2021, while its Instagram profile attracted\u0026thinsp;\u0026asymp;\u0026thinsp;95 000 followers and posted\u0026thinsp;\u0026asymp;\u0026thinsp;2 300 images and videos referencing Qur\u0026rsquo;anic justifications for women\u0026rsquo;s legal autonomy (Social Blade, 2022). The WLA SA Telegram channel, launched alongside the petition, amassed\u0026thinsp;\u0026asymp;\u0026thinsp;93 000 members within two years and now disseminates daily legal tips, \u0026ldquo;how-to-obtain a passport,\u0026rdquo; and updates on governmental policy functions that scholars describe as \u0026ldquo;digital legal scaffolding\u0026rdquo; for a population previously barred from formal legal counsel (Mandaville, 2013). These follower counts, combined with the high-volume hashtag spikes, illustrate how a relatively small core of activists (\u0026asymp;\u0026thinsp;10\u0026ndash;15% of the total signatory pool) can generate a cascade of visibility that forces the state to respond in a language it finds politically palatable.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIn sum, the two flagship digital mobilisation cycles including Women2Drive (2011\u0026ndash;2013) and EndGuardianship (2016\u0026ndash;2019) demonstrate a cumulative pattern in which modest but highly visible petition signatures, amplified through millions of social-media impressions, precipitated concrete legal reforms. The petitions\u0026rsquo; signatures grew from hundreds in the early 2000s (a 2007 petition with \u0026asymp;\u0026thinsp;1 100 Saudi women signatories) to tens of thousands in the mid-2010s, while the associated hashtags generated hundreds of thousands of tweets and multi-million video views, creating an enduring public ledger that the monarchy could not ignore. The resultant policy changes\u0026mdash;lifting the driving ban, liberalizing passport issuance, and dismantling key guardianship controls\u0026mdash;align closely with the gender-equality targets embedded in Vision 2030 and have been credited by the Ministry of Economy \u0026amp; Planning for contributing to the increase in female labour-force participation from 22% to 33% (2022). Thus, the Saudi women\u0026rsquo;s digital activism around mobility and legal autonomy offers a compelling empirical case of how relatively small-scale, scripturally grounded petitions can be multiplied through networked social-media tactics to produce measurable shifts in state policy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"6. Reflection","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe empirical patterns uncovered in this study sustain a process-tracing argument that scriptural framing functions as a calculated political resource through which Saudi feminist claims acquire legitimacy both within the religious establishment and across the wider public sphere. Two intertwined mechanisms drive this dynamic. First, activists\u0026rsquo; linguistic mirroring of Qur\u0026rsquo;anic verses generates a discursive uptake that is swiftly appropriated by state actors. The verbatim recurrence of Qur\u0026rsquo;an 2:228 in ministerial speeches, Vision 2030 policy briefs, and the 2023 guardianship amendment illustrates more than symbolic alignment; it signals a direct absorption of activist framing into the official legal narrative, thereby completing a bottom-up to top-down causal pathway. Second, the performers\u0026rsquo; embodied piety\u0026mdash;veiled dress, overt observance of Islamic norms, and public declarations of religious commitment\u0026mdash;provides reputational insulation against the familiar accusation of \u0026ldquo;Western subversion.\u0026rdquo; By situating their demands within a recognizably Islamic moral grammar, activists pre-empt delegitimisation and re-position feminist critique as an internal corrective rather than an external imposition.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThese mechanisms, however, do not simply amplify feminist demands; they reconfigure them. Scriptural framing does not dilute the political content of the claims but reshapes them to fit the doctrinal parameters that the state simultaneously enforces and protects. In doing so, activists simultaneously invoke internal legitimacy\u0026mdash;through shared scriptural authority, and external legitimacy, by couching their appeals in the language of universal justice (ʿadl) that resonates with international human-rights discourse. The resulting \u0026ldquo;dual legitimacy\u0026rdquo; expands the strategic repertoire available to feminist actors but also creates a paradox: the very scriptural veneer that shields the movement may also cement the theological foundations of the regime, potentially limiting the scope of transformation to reforms that remain comfortably situated within the existing religious order.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Saudi context also demands a reconceptualization of the counterpublic model. Rather than a monolithic feminist counterpublic, the digital terrain hosts a poly-counterpublic organized around reformist feminist, conservative religious, and state-aligned audiences. These publics intersect, negotiate, and occasionally overlap, producing the \u0026ldquo;connective outburst\u0026rdquo; pattern whereby brief, intense spikes of online activity\u0026mdash;often triggered by a hashtag trend\u0026mdash;cascade into elite acknowledgment and, ultimately, into policy drafts. This episodic mobilisation enables activists to exert pressure while avoiding sustained exposure to repression, yet it also raises questions about the durability of the reforms that emerge from such fleeting moments of alignment. The model would benefit from a more explicit accounting of the long-term organizational capacities that can translate episodic success into sustained institutional change.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTechnopolitics further shapes the risk-benefit calculus confronting activists. The Saudi digital authoritarian architecture that is characterized by algorithmic suppression, pervasive surveillance, and an expansive electronic army compels the use of encryption (Signal, Threema, Wire), VPNs, privacy-focused email services, and anonymity tactics such as pseudonyms and strategic veiling. Simultaneously, the state\u0026rsquo;s Vision 2030 digital modernisation agenda creates institutional doorways, for example, government-approved petition portals that activists can exploit. This dialectic of repression and co-optation underscores that digital security measures are necessary but insufficient; they operate within a broader regime of control that can swiftly repurpose activist language for its own legitimizing ends, as witnessed in the 2025 guardianship amendment.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSaudi Arabia presents a distinct configuration as a monopolized Wahhabi jurisprudential state, an explicitly developmentalist Vision 2030 narrative, and a sophisticated electronic surveillance apparatus. These features intensify the strategic calculations of activists and make the Saudi case a compelling test bed for the poly-counterpublic model. Nonetheless, the analysis must acknowledge its limitations. Reliance on publicly available digital traces may underrepresent covert networks, and the focus on episodic spikes may obscure the incremental, less visible organizing work that sustains reformist momentum. Future research should therefore triangulate digital data with ethnographic inquiry and trace the durability of scripturally framed reforms beyond their initial enactment.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn sum, this paper contributes (1) a model of digital Islamic-feminist counterpublics that integrates Sharia-based framing, strategic visuality, and connective mobilisation under authoritarian digital infrastructures; (2) empirical evidence that religious hermeneutics can act as a political resource capable of reshaping state rhetoric and law within a theologically grounded authoritarian regime; and (3) a pathway framework linking hashtag surges, mass petitions, state monitoring, and legislative amendment, thereby illustrating how digital activism can exert policy influence even under tight repression. Critical scrutiny, however, reveals that the same scriptural tools that protect and amplify feminist claims also risk reinforcing the theological legitimacy of the state, suggesting that the durability and depth of Saudi gender reforms will hinge on actors\u0026rsquo; ability to navigate, without being subsumed by this dual-legitimacy terrain.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"8. Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eSaudi women\u0026rsquo;s digital activism represents a historically grounded yet technologically adaptive form of feminist engagement. Contemporary online campaigns such as viral hashtags, TikTok videos, and multimedia content are not isolated or spontaneous phenomena but an evolution of strategies originating in early internet forums, email lists, and anonymous digital spaces in the 1990s. Across decades, thematic concerns such as gender justice, guardianship, mobility, protection from violence, religious reinterpretation, and the assertion of individual autonomy have remained remarkably consistent, and Sharia-based. What has changed is the scale, speed, and visibility of mobilization, enabled by social media platforms that amplify reach while simultaneously introducing new risks of surveillance and state scrutiny. This suggests that Saudi women\u0026rsquo;s activism is tactical, adaptive, and deeply informed by digital literacy, combining epistemic authority, visual strategy, and technological skill to navigate a highly controlled public sphere.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSaudi women\u0026rsquo;s digital activism illustrates a highly strategic, historically rooted, and technologically mediated form of Islamic feminist resistance. By anchoring demands in Qur\u0026rsquo;anic ethics, employing veiled visuality, and orchestrating connective outbursts that translate personal grievances into mass mobilisation, activists have successfully pressured the state to remove the driving ban, to standardize family law, and to amend male-guardianship laws. These are concrete policy shifts that reflect both activist framing and the state\u0026rsquo;s desire to showcase Vision 2030 reforms. Complementing these strategies, professional and technological expertise in AI, fintech, and STEM fields demonstrates the interplay between digital literacy and political agency, as women leverage technical skill to influence governance, shape policy, and expand influence within socially sanctioned frameworks. Together, these practices show how digital and professional engagement converge to produce multi-dimensional forms of feminist authority in Saudi Arabia.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNevertheless, the fragility of these gains remains evident: surveillance intensifies, \u0026ldquo;electronic armies\u0026rdquo; continue to drown dissent, and legal reforms can be reversed. Future research should (i) longitudinally trace the durability of policy changes, (ii) compare Saudi digital Islamic feminism with similar movements in Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia, and (iii) investigate the emerging role of AI-driven content moderation and deep-fake manipulation in shaping feminist counterpublics. By foregrounding Sharia-based hermeneutics as a political tool and revealing the technopolitics of Saudi digital authoritarianism, this study expands our understanding of how religion, technology, and gender intersect to produce both opportunities and constraints for feminist agency in contemporary Islam.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAssociate professor Jihan Zakarriya is responsible for the study conception and design, data collection and analysis, manuscript writing, and final approval of the submitted version.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAcknowledgement\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis research was funded by the European Union (ERC, GulfFeminisms, Grant Agreement No. 101078083). The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. 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Vulnerability, resistance, and sexuality in revolutionary Egypt. \u003cem\u003eWomen\u0026rsquo;s Studies international Forum\u003c/em\u003e,77, 2019,1\u0026ndash;8.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Gendered digital activism, Islamic feminism, Saudi Arabia, legal reform, mobilization","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8677400/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8677400/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThis article investigates how and why Saudi women utilize digitalized Islamic feminism and Sharia-based interpretations to advocate for legal reform within an authoritarian, technologically mediated political system. Drawing on digital Islamic feminist hermeneutics, the study examines how young Saudi women employ Qur\u0026rsquo;anic reasoning, Hadith, feminist tafsīr (interpretation), and Sharia-based argumentation to legitimize challenges to entrenched patriarchal norms. Using digital ethnography, platform-based content analysis, and twenty-three semi-structured interviews conducted between April and October 2025, the article traces how personal testimonies of domestic violence, guardianship abuse, mobility restrictions, and workplace discrimination are transformed into collective mobilization. The findings reveal that Saudi women strategically navigate state-regulated digital infrastructures shaped by surveillance, platform governance, and the Saudi digital-authoritarian ecosystem, producing a technologically mediated Islamic feminist counterpublic that contests state-controlled gender narratives and conservative and Wahhabist interpretative heritage as well. Activists pressure political leadership to reform guardianship and personal-status laws, leverage state-promoted digital modernization, and resist its coercive dimensions. Islamic framing functions as both \u0026ldquo;legitimacy capital\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;risk mitigation\u0026rdquo; and that this duality explains the partial policy uptake. By demonstrating how Sharia-based feminist discourse serves as a central tool for negotiating, resisting, and reshaping legal and political possibilities, this article contributes to scholarship on Islamic feminism, digital activism under authoritarianism, and gendered technopolitics.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Digital Activism, Legal Reform, and Islamic Feminist Resistance in Saudi Arabia","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-02-23 09:32:00","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8677400/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"943e58cd-cbe5-470c-9a4b-63838cd518cf","owner":[],"postedDate":"February 23rd, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-05-11T13:53:13+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-02-23 09:32:00","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8677400","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8677400","identity":"rs-8677400","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}