Feminist Edges of the Qur’an
by aysha a. hidayatullah
oxford, 288 pages, $24.95
M
odern developments in the study of the Qur’an began in Western academia in the mid-late twentieth century with scholars like Fazlur Rahman. Leading thinkers in this field such as Riffat Hassan, Azizah al-Hibri, Amina Wadud, and Asma Barlas have followed, offering feminist interpretations that I, and many others, find persuasive.
Critiques of these interpretations have come from the right and the left: from conservative Muslim scholars who believe that feminism does not acknowledge the authority of established exegetical tradition and subverts gender roles that they consider intrinsic to Islam; and from feminist critics of Islamic tradition who consider reverence for the Qur’an as a source of egalitarian teaching to be misplaced. For them, the challenge this work poses to entrenched gender hierarchies in Muslim societies does not go far enough.
