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Does Islam call for the oppression of women? Non-Muslims point to the subjugation of women that occurs in many Muslim countries, especially those that claim to be "Islamic," while many Muslims read the Qur’an in ways that seem to justify sexual oppression, inequality, and patriarchy. Taking a wholly different view, Asma Barlas develops a believer’s reading of the Qur’an that demonstrates the radically egalitarian and antipatriarchal nature of its teachings. Beginning with a historical analysis of religious authority and knowledge, Barlas shows how Muslims came to read inequality and patriarchy into the Qur’an to justify existing religious and social structures and demonstrates that the patriarchal meanings ascribed to the Qur’an are a function of who has read it, how, and in what contexts. She goes on to reread the Qur’an’s position on a variety of issues in order to argue that its teachings do not support patriarchy. To the contrary, Barlas convincingly asserts that the Qur’an affirms the complete equality of the sexes, thereby offering an opportunity to theorize radical sexual equality from within the framework of its teachings. This new view takes readers into the heart of Islamic teachings on women, gender, and patriarchy, allowing them to understand Islam through its most sacred scripture, rather than through Muslim cultural practices or Western media stereotypes. For this revised edition of Believing Women in Islam, Asma Barlas has written two new chapters—“Abraham’s Sacrifice in the Qur’an” and “Secular/Feminism and the Qur’an”—as well as a new preface, an extended discussion of the Qur’an’s “wife-beating” verse and of men’s presumed role as women’s guardians, and other updates throughout the book.
Is women’s inequality supported by the Qur’an? Do men have the exclusive right to interpret Islam’s holy scripture? In her best-selling book Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an, Asma Barlas argues that, far from supporting male privilege, the Qur’an actually encourages the full equality of women and men. She explains why a handful of verses have been interpreted to favor men and shows how these same verses can be read in an egalitarian way that is fully supported by the text itself and compatible with the Qur’an’s message that it is complete and self-consistent. A Brief Introduction presents the arguments of Believing Women in a simplified way that will be accessible and inviting to general readers and undergraduate students. The authors focus primarily on the Qur’an’s teachings about women and patriarchy. They show how traditional teachings about women’s inferiority are not supported by the Qur’an but were products of patriarchal societies that used it to justify their existing religious and social structures. The authors’ hope is that by understanding how patriarchal traditionalists have come to exercise so much authority in today’s Islam, as well as by rereading some of the Qur’an’s most controversial verses, adherents of the faith will learn to question patriarchal dogma and see that an egalitarian reading of the Qur’an is equally possible and, for myriad reasons, more plausible.
An Inspiring Account of One Woman's Journey to Reclaim Her Spiritual and Cultural Identity For Asma Hasan, being a Muslim is not merely a matter of birth, but a matter of choice and faith. Hasan's personal relationship with her religion was, and continues to be, a defining element of her life, and through her writing she inspires a new understanding and appreciation of a frequently misunderstood tradition. This is her American story.
Fourteen centuries of Islamic thought have produced a legacy of interpretive readings of the Qu'ran written almost entirely by men. Now, with Qu'ran and Woman, Amina Wadud provides a first interpretive reading by a woman, a reading which validates the female voice in the Qu'ran and brings it out of the shadows. Muslim progressives have long argued that it is not the religion but patriarchal interpretation and implementation of the Qu'ran that have kept women oppressed. For many, the way to reform is the reexamination and reinterpretation of religious texts. Qu'ran and Woman contributes a gender inclusive reading to one of the most fundamental disciplines in Islamic thought, Qu'ranic exegesis. Wadud breaks down specific texts and key words which have been used to limit women's public and private role, even to justify violence toward Muslim women, revealing that their original meaning and context defy such interpretations. What her analysis clarifies is the lack of gender bias, precedence, or prejudice in the essential language of the Qur'an. Despite much Qu'ranic evidence about the significance of women, gender reform in Muslim society has been stubbornly resisted. Wadud's reading of the Qu'ran confirms women's equality and constitutes legitimate grounds for contesting the unequal treatment that women have experienced historically and continue to experience legally in Muslim communities. The Qu'ran does not prescribe one timeless and unchanging social structure for men and women, Wadud argues lucidly, affirming that the Qu'ran holds greater possibilities for guiding human society to a more fulfilling and productive mutual collaboration between men and women than as yet attained by Muslims or non-Muslims.
Until now the bulk of the literature about the veil has been written by outsiders who do not themselves veil. This literature often assumes a condescending tone about veiled women, assuming that they are making uninformed decisions choices about veiling makes them subservient to a patriarchal culture and religion. “Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil” offers an alternative viewpoint, based on the thoughts and experiences of Muslim women themselves. This is the first time a clear and concise book-length argument has been made for the compatibility between veiling and modernity. Katherine Bullock uncovers positive aspects of the veil that are frequently not perceived by outsiders. “Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil” looks at the colonial roots of the negative Western stereotype of the veil. It presents interviews with Muslim women to discover their thoughts and experiences with the veil in Canada. The book also offers a positive theory of veiling. The author argues that in consumer capitalist cultures, women can find wearing the veil a liberation from the stifling beauty game that promotes unsafe and unhealthy ideal body images for women. This book also includes an extensive bibliography on topics related to Muslim women and the veil.
An introduction to the Qur'an (Koran), a text that has guided the lives of millions.
Muslim-American women, in all their diversity, are given the chance to tell their stories in their own voice by award-winning journalist Donna Gehrke-White. The only book of its kind, it tells in extraordinarily moving detail the lives of New Traditionalists, who wear the veil though their forebears did not; Blenders, who do not wear the veil but consider themselves spiritual; and Converts - women from other religious backgrounds who have converted to Islam. A rare, revealing look into the hearts, minds and lives of a misunderstood people.
Mona Samadi examines the sources of gender differences within the Islamic tradition, with particular focus on guardianship, and describes the opportunities and challenges for advancing the legal status of women.
A probing study of the veil's recent return—from one of the world's foremost authorities on Muslim women—that reaches surprising conclusions about contemporary Islam's place in the West todayIn Cairo in the 1940s, Leila Ahmed was raised by a generation of women who never dressed in the veils and headscarves their mothers and grandmothers had worn. To them, these coverings seemed irrelevant to both modern life and Islamic piety. Today, however, the majority of Muslim women throughout the Islamic world again wear the veil. Why, Ahmed asks, did this change take root so swiftly, and what does this shift mean for women, Islam, and the West?When she began her study, Ahmed assumed that the veil's return indicated a backward step for Muslim women worldwide. What she discovered, however, in the stories of British colonial officials, young Muslim feminists, Arab nationalists, pious Islamic daughters, American Muslim immigrants, violent jihadists, and peaceful Islamic activists, confounded her expectations. Ahmed observed that Islamism, with its commitments to activism in the service of the poor and in pursuit of social justice, is the strain of Islam most easily and naturally merging with western democracies' own tradition of activism in the cause of justice and social change. It is often Islamists, even more than secular Muslims, who are at the forefront of such contemporary activist struggles as civil rights and women's rights. Ahmed's surprising conclusions represent a near reversal of her thinking on this topic.Richly insightful, intricately drawn, and passionately argued, this absorbing story of the veil's resurgence, from Egypt through Saudi Arabia and into the West, suggests a dramatically new portrait of contemporary Islam.