In this article, I discuss the tensions between patriarchal and non-patriarchal interpretations of the Islamic tradition and some of the factors which contribute to the engendering of both. In order to contextualize the main discussion in the first part of the article, I outline the historical tensions between the study of religion and gender in general. The question of whether the culturally organizing function of gender is to be inevitably linked to the formation and perpetuation of patriarchal religion in general, and Islam in particular, is explored, or whether religion, including the case of Islam, can be a source of non-patriarchal values and ethics. In the second part, I discuss some of the most prominent factors which contribute to patriarchal interpretations of the Islamic tradition by grouping them, from the perspective of the individual interpreter, into those which pertain to personal opinion regarding the nature of two genders, Sitz im Leben, and interpretational methodology (manhaj). In the context of non-patriarchal interpretations of the Islamic tradition, I discuss its main delineating features and show, by using the work of a contemporary reformist Iranian scholar, H. Y. Eshkevari (b. 1949/1950), how the contemporary non-patriarchal interpretations of the Islamic tradition are sensitive to how both patriarchy and gender influence the process of interpretation.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Abdolqodir, Faqihuddin. 2015. “Interpretation of Hadith for Equality of Women and Men: Reading Tahrir al-Mar’a fi Asr al-Risala by Abd Halim Abu Shuqqa (1924–1995).” Unpublished PhD diss., uin Yogyakarta.
Abu Rabi’i, Ibrahim. 2006. The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing.
Ahmed, Leila. 1992. Women and Gender in Islam. Princeton, NJ: Yale University Press.
Ali, Kecia. 2010. Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
An’Na’im, Abdullahi. 2011. Muslims and Global Justice. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Auda, Jassir. 2008. Maqāṣid Al-Sharīʿah as Philosophy of Islamic Law. London: IIT.
Auda, Jassir. 2011. “A Maqāṣidi approach to contemporary application of the Sharīʿah.” Intellectual Discourse 19: 193–217.
Aune, Kristine. 2009. “Religion, Gender Roles.” In Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, edited by Jodi O’Brian, 709–714. New York: Palgrave.
Barlas, Asma. 2002. Believing Women in Islam—Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾān. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bauer, Karen. 2008. “Room for Interpretation: Qurʾānic Exegesis and Gender.” PhD diss., Princeton University.
Connell, Robert. 1995. Masculinities. St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin.
Connell, Robert. 2002. Gender. Cambridge, UK: Blackwell Publishers.
Duderija, Adis. 2011. Constructing a Religiously Ideal “Believer” and “Woman” in Islam: Neo-Traditional Salafi and progressive Muslim methods of interpretation (manahij). New York: Palgrave.
Duderija, Adis. 2013. “The Case study of Patriarchy and Slavery: The Hermeneutical Importance of Qur’ānic Assumptions in the Development of a Values-Based and Purposive Driven Qurān-Sunna Hermeneutic.” Hawwa 11 (1): 58–87.
Duderija, Adis. 2014a. “Islam and Gender in the Thought of a Critical-Progressive Muslim Scholar-Activist Ziba Mir-Hosseini.” Islam and Christian Muslim Relations 25 (3): 433–449.
Duderija, Adis. 2014b. “Maqāsid Al Shari’ah, Gender Egalitarian Qurʾānic Hermeneutics and the Reformation of Muslim Family Law.” In Maqasid Al Shari’ah and Contemporary Muslim Reformist Thought: an Examination, edited by Adis Duderija, 193–219. New York: Palgrave.
Duderija, Adis. 2015. “Toward a Scriptural Hermeneutic of Islamic Feminism.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 31 (2), 45–64.
Duderija, Adis. 2017. The Imperatives of Progressive Islam. New York: Routledge.
El-Fadl, Khaled. 2003. Speaking in God’s Name—Islamic Law, Authority and Women. Oxford: Oneworld.
Eshkevari, Hassan. 2013. “Rethinking Men’s Authority over Women: Qiwama, Wilaya and their Underlying Assumptions.” In Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law, edited by Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen and Christian Moe, 191–213. New York: I. B. Tauris.
Al-Ghazali, Muhammad. 2012. Marriage and Sexuality in Islam. Translated by Madelaine Farah. Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust.
Harhash, Nadia. 2015. “Al-Ghazali’s views on Women: A Comparison with Ibn Rushd.” ma Thesis, Al Quds University. https://www.academia.edu/s/732eb11619.
Hermansen, Marcia. 2013. “The New Voices of Muslim Women Theologians.” In Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians, edited by Ednan Aslan, Marcia Hermansen, and Elif Medenis, 11–34. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Hopflinger, Anna-Katarina, Anne Lavanchy, and Janine Dahinden. 2012. “Introduction: Linking Gender and Religion.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 41 (6): 615–638.
Hunter, Shireen. 2009. Reformist Voices of Islam: mediating Islam and modernity. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Ibn Manzur, Muhammad Ibn Mukarram. 1992. Lisan al-’arab. Beirut: Dar al Fikr.
Joseph, Suad, and Susan Slyomovics, 2001. Women and Power in the Middle East. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Kamali, Hashim. 1996. “Methodological Issues in Islamic Jurisprudence.” Arab Law Quarterly 11 (1): 3–33.
Kamali, Hashim. 2011. “Maqāṣid al-šarīʿa and Ijtihad as Instruments of Civilizational Renewal: A Methodological Perspective.” Islam and Civilisational Renewal 2 (2): 245–271.
Kandiyoti, Deniz. 1988. “Bargaining with patriarchy.” Gender and Society 2: 274–290.
Keddie, Nikkie. 2007. Women in the Middle East: Past and Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kilmartin, Christopher. 2009. The Masculine Self. 4th Edition. New York: Sloan Publishing.
King, Ursula. ed. 1995. Religion and Gender. Oxford: Blackwell.
King, Ursula, and Tina Beattie. 2005. Gender, Religion and Diversity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. London/New York: Continuum.
Kramer, Laura. 2011. The Sociology of Gender: A Brief Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mahallati, Amineh. 2010. “Women in traditional Sharīa: a list of differences between men and women in Islamic tradition.” Journal of Islamic Law and Culture 12 (1): 1–9.
Manning, Christel. 2012. “Gender.” In Encyclopedia of Global Religion, edited by Mark Juergensmeyer and Wade Clark Roof, 435–438. 2 vols. Los Angeles: Sage Reference.
Mernissi, Fatima. 1991. The Veil and the Male Elite—A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.
Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. 2013. Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law. New York: I. B. Tauris.
Mir-Hosseini, Ziba, and Richard Tapper. 2006. Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform. New York: I. B. Tauris.
Moghadam, Valerie. 2010. “Women, Structure, and Agency in the Middle East: Introduction and Overview to Feminist Formations.” Special Issue on Women in the Middle East 22 (3): 1–9.
Nashat, Guity. 2004. “Women in the Middle East, 8000 BCE to 1700 CE.” In Blackwell Companion to Gender History, edited by Teresa A. Meade and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, 229–249. Oxford: Blackwell.
Olson, Carl. 2010. Religious Studies: The Key Concepts. New York: Routledge.
Ramadan, Tariq. 2009. Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rosaldo, Michel, and Louise Lamphere. 1974. Woman, Culture, and Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Sabbah, Fatna. 1984. Woman in the Muslim Subconscious. New York: Pergamon Press.
Sachedina, Abdulaziz. 2009. Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shaikh, Sa’adiyya. 2004. “Knowledge, Women and Gender in the Hadith: A Feminist Interpretation.” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 15 (1): 99–108.
Sharabi, Hisham. 1988. Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sinclair, Karen. 1986. “Women and Religion.” In The Cross-Cultural Study of Women: A Comprehensive Guide, edited by Margot I. Duley and Mary I. Edwards, 107–124. City University of New York: The Feminist Press.
Soroush, Abdolkarim. 2009. The Expansion of Prophetic Experience—Essays on Historicity, Contingency and Plurality in Religion. Leiden: Brill.
Tabatabai, Muhammad. 2017. Tafsir Al-Mizan. Tawheed Institute Australia. Accessed October 25. http://www.almizan.org/.
Umar, Nasruddin. 2004. “Gender Biases in Qur’anic Exegesis: A Study of Scriptural Interpretation from a Gender Perspective.” Hawwa 4 (3): 337–363.
Wiesner-Hanks, Merry. 2011. Gender in History: global perspectives. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Blackwell-Wiley.
Al-Zamakhsharī, Jār Allāh Mahmūd ʿUmabr. . 1965. Al-Kashshāf. Edited by Ahmad b. al-Munīr al-Iskandarī. Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 1193 | 230 | 53 |
Full Text Views | 300 | 8 | 3 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 165 | 18 | 5 |
In this article, I discuss the tensions between patriarchal and non-patriarchal interpretations of the Islamic tradition and some of the factors which contribute to the engendering of both. In order to contextualize the main discussion in the first part of the article, I outline the historical tensions between the study of religion and gender in general. The question of whether the culturally organizing function of gender is to be inevitably linked to the formation and perpetuation of patriarchal religion in general, and Islam in particular, is explored, or whether religion, including the case of Islam, can be a source of non-patriarchal values and ethics. In the second part, I discuss some of the most prominent factors which contribute to patriarchal interpretations of the Islamic tradition by grouping them, from the perspective of the individual interpreter, into those which pertain to personal opinion regarding the nature of two genders, Sitz im Leben, and interpretational methodology (manhaj). In the context of non-patriarchal interpretations of the Islamic tradition, I discuss its main delineating features and show, by using the work of a contemporary reformist Iranian scholar, H. Y. Eshkevari (b. 1949/1950), how the contemporary non-patriarchal interpretations of the Islamic tradition are sensitive to how both patriarchy and gender influence the process of interpretation.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 1193 | 230 | 53 |
Full Text Views | 300 | 8 | 3 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 165 | 18 | 5 |