Shadaab Rahemtulla
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198796480
- eISBN:
- 9780191837753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198796480.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter explores the Qur’anic commentary of the African American intellectual Amina Wadud. After providing some historical and biographical background, it unpacks her interpretive method. Like ...
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This chapter explores the Qur’anic commentary of the African American intellectual Amina Wadud. After providing some historical and biographical background, it unpacks her interpretive method. Like Esack and Engineer, the Qur’an is the primary textual source of Wadud’s Islamic discourse. However, this chapter argues that while Esack’s method is squarely dialectical, based on praxis, Wadud’s is more linear in character, in which liberating interpretations are applied to contexts of oppression. After providing a critique of her discourse on religious authority, the chapter provides an in-depth analysis of her gender egalitarian reading of the Qur’an, engaging issues such as the origins of humankind, polygamy, and women’s leadership. Here, the dual paradigms of tawhid (monotheism) and khilafa (human trusteeship) play a central role. The chapter ends by unearthing the multi-faceted nature of Wadud’s understanding of oppression—an acutely layered experience embodied in the figure of Hagar.Less
This chapter explores the Qur’anic commentary of the African American intellectual Amina Wadud. After providing some historical and biographical background, it unpacks her interpretive method. Like Esack and Engineer, the Qur’an is the primary textual source of Wadud’s Islamic discourse. However, this chapter argues that while Esack’s method is squarely dialectical, based on praxis, Wadud’s is more linear in character, in which liberating interpretations are applied to contexts of oppression. After providing a critique of her discourse on religious authority, the chapter provides an in-depth analysis of her gender egalitarian reading of the Qur’an, engaging issues such as the origins of humankind, polygamy, and women’s leadership. Here, the dual paradigms of tawhid (monotheism) and khilafa (human trusteeship) play a central role. The chapter ends by unearthing the multi-faceted nature of Wadud’s understanding of oppression—an acutely layered experience embodied in the figure of Hagar.
Shadaab Rahemtulla
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198796480
- eISBN:
- 9780191837753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198796480.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter explores the Qur’anic commentary of the Pakistani American intellectual Asma Barlas. After providing some historical and biographical background, it unpacks her interpretive method. Like ...
More
This chapter explores the Qur’anic commentary of the Pakistani American intellectual Asma Barlas. After providing some historical and biographical background, it unpacks her interpretive method. Like all the commentators studied, Barlas privileges the Qur’an in her Islamic discourse, and this chapter systematically outlines the hermeneutical strategies that she uses to expound scripture. The chapter argues that although Wadud and Barlas both undertake gender egalitarian readings, Barlas is engaged in a substantively different (though complementary) project. For whereas Wadud explores the subject of woman in the Qur’an, Barlas interrogates the relationship between the text and patriarchy. After examining Barlas’ usage of tawhid (monotheism) as a core theological paradigm, the chapter critiques an essentialist tendency in her exegesis. The chapter ends by exploring her holistic approach to social justice, arguing that this approach stems from her engagement in ‘double critique’, or speaking truth to power in both Muslim and non-Muslim Western contexts.Less
This chapter explores the Qur’anic commentary of the Pakistani American intellectual Asma Barlas. After providing some historical and biographical background, it unpacks her interpretive method. Like all the commentators studied, Barlas privileges the Qur’an in her Islamic discourse, and this chapter systematically outlines the hermeneutical strategies that she uses to expound scripture. The chapter argues that although Wadud and Barlas both undertake gender egalitarian readings, Barlas is engaged in a substantively different (though complementary) project. For whereas Wadud explores the subject of woman in the Qur’an, Barlas interrogates the relationship between the text and patriarchy. After examining Barlas’ usage of tawhid (monotheism) as a core theological paradigm, the chapter critiques an essentialist tendency in her exegesis. The chapter ends by exploring her holistic approach to social justice, arguing that this approach stems from her engagement in ‘double critique’, or speaking truth to power in both Muslim and non-Muslim Western contexts.
Shadaab Rahemtulla
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198796480
- eISBN:
- 9780191837753
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198796480.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This book offers a comprehensive survey and analysis of the commentaries of four leading Muslim intellectuals who have turned to the Qur’an to confront the problem of social injustice, from poverty ...
More
This book offers a comprehensive survey and analysis of the commentaries of four leading Muslim intellectuals who have turned to the Qur’an to confront the problem of social injustice, from poverty and patriarchy to racism and interreligious communal violence. Using a comparative transnational framework, the book explores the exegeses of the South African Farid Esack (b. 1956), the Indian Asghar Ali Engineer (1939–2013), the African American Amina Wadud (b. 1952), and the Pakistani American Asma Barlas (b. 1950), supplemented by in-depth interviews with each of them. The following question frames the study: How have these intellectuals been able to expound this seventh century Arabian text in a socially liberating way, addressing their own realities of oppression and, thus, contexts that are worlds removed from that of the text’s immediate audience? The book argues that they have been able to do so due to three principal reasons: firstly, the substantive content of the text itself, that is, its accent on social justice and descriptions of God as a compassionate and just deity; secondly, their critique of existing reading practices, which (according to them) pose obstacles in arriving at an egalitarian and inclusive understanding of the text; and thirdly, their adoption of new reading practices that enable them to arrive at precisely such an understanding, thereby making the text directly relevant to their own lived experiences. The book concludes by reflecting on new insights that liberationist and women’s gender egalitarian readings can offer in terms of the ‘thematic exegesis’ of the Qur’an.Less
This book offers a comprehensive survey and analysis of the commentaries of four leading Muslim intellectuals who have turned to the Qur’an to confront the problem of social injustice, from poverty and patriarchy to racism and interreligious communal violence. Using a comparative transnational framework, the book explores the exegeses of the South African Farid Esack (b. 1956), the Indian Asghar Ali Engineer (1939–2013), the African American Amina Wadud (b. 1952), and the Pakistani American Asma Barlas (b. 1950), supplemented by in-depth interviews with each of them. The following question frames the study: How have these intellectuals been able to expound this seventh century Arabian text in a socially liberating way, addressing their own realities of oppression and, thus, contexts that are worlds removed from that of the text’s immediate audience? The book argues that they have been able to do so due to three principal reasons: firstly, the substantive content of the text itself, that is, its accent on social justice and descriptions of God as a compassionate and just deity; secondly, their critique of existing reading practices, which (according to them) pose obstacles in arriving at an egalitarian and inclusive understanding of the text; and thirdly, their adoption of new reading practices that enable them to arrive at precisely such an understanding, thereby making the text directly relevant to their own lived experiences. The book concludes by reflecting on new insights that liberationist and women’s gender egalitarian readings can offer in terms of the ‘thematic exegesis’ of the Qur’an.
