The Woman Question in Islamic Studies

By Kecia Ali

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Date: September 17, 2024

Hardcover: 240 pages

ISBN: 9780691261843

The interconnected ways that sexism functions in academic Islamic studies and how to shift professional norms toward parity

Despite remarkable shifts in the demographics of Islamic studies in recent decades, the field continues to be dominated by men, who often relegate other scholars and their work—particularly research on gender—to its periphery, while treating subfields in which men predominate as more rigorous and central. In The Woman Question in Islamic Studies, Kecia Ali explores the interconnected ways that sexism functions in academic Islamic studies. Examining publications, citations, curricula, and media representations, Ali finds that, despite the growth and depth of scholarship on Islam and gender, men continue to overlook women’s scholarship, even in work that purports to discuss gender issues. Moreover, media and social media dynamics make talking about Islam and Muslims for broader audiences especially fraught for scholars who are not men, particularly when the topic is gender or sexuality.

Combining broad surveys with more focused analyses of a smaller set of texts, Ali shows that textbooks and syllabi continue to exclude women as historical actors and scholars and to marginalize gender and sexuality as subject matter. Finally, she provides a “Beginner’s Guide to Eradicating Sexism in Islamic Studies,” offering practical strategies to help scholars avoid common pitfalls in their own work and contribute to broader professional transformations.

About the Author

Kecia Ali is professor of religion at Boston University. She is the author of The Lives of Muhammad, Imam Shafi‘i: Scholar and Saint, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam, and Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence.

Reviews

• “An indispensable guide to how scholars, researchers, students, and other interested parties can analyze scholarship on Islam past and present. The Woman Question in Islamic Studies is a text to be returned to repeatedly for what it portends for Islamic studies scholarship in the future.”– Aminah Al-Deen, DePaul University
• “For anyone interested in the teaching of Islam and Muslims, Kecia Ali’s book is eye-opening and riveting. This book is essential reading for anyone invested in making their classroom the setting for transformative engagement.”– Zayn Kassam, Pomona College
• “This is a beautifully written book that combines analytic rigor with an accessible style and the occasional devastating quip. It reflects astonishingly broad and deep reading, giving depth and texture to everything from its accounts of the professional travails of women scholars of previous generations to its analysis of citational politics.”– Marion Katz, New York University
• “Ali has generated a remarkable amount of concrete data about the representation of women scholars’ work in Islamic studies. That is impressive enough—it is the backbone of the book—but Ali also draws on her considerable experience as a scholar in the field. To me, that is equally compelling evidence.”– Ellen Muehlberger, University of Michigan

Source: Princeton University Press

Author: Inaash Islam

Published in: Feminist Formations, Vol. 35, Issue 2, Summer 2023, pp. 174-197

Publication Date: September 28, 2023

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Abstract:

What is the relationship between Islamic principles of modesty and practices of aesthetic labor in the industries of influencer marketing and fashion? Inaash Islam responds to this question by examining the aesthetic labor of self-proclaimed modest Muslim female social media influencers to show how Islamic modesty—as it is understood via patriarchal interpretations of Islamic texts, and by cultural authorities in secular circles of fashion, is deemed inherently antithetical to Muslim female aesthetic labor in the fashion and influencer marketing industries. Her findings show that Muslimah influencers face a doubly burdened challenge: on the one hand, Muslim women are expected to modify their performances of modesty to align with the secular expectations of aesthetic labor in these industries, but on the other, they are expected to observe modesty according to patriarchal interpretations of Islamic texts. In either case, failure to abide by racialized and gendered expectations renders Muslim women vulnerable to critique from Muslim and non-Muslim communities. She argues that this conflict illustrates that Islamic modesty is deemed fundamental to contemporary conceptions and embodied performances of Muslim womanhood online and plays a key role in shaping racialized and gendered expectations of Muslim women held by Muslim and non-Muslim communities in the west.

By Lana Sirri

Publisher: Routledge

Publication Date: May 30, 2022

This book sets out a rationale for the compatibility of Islam and Feminism and shows that Islamic Feminism is a diverse and valuable lens through which to analyze religion and gender. In addition, including scholarship written in Arabic, it promotes the decolonization of knowledge production around Islam, gender and sexuality.

Islamic feminism is a field of study that has been marginalized both in contemporary Islamic discourse and in feminist discourse. This study counters this marginalization in two ways. Firstly, it enumerates the diversity of approaches used in Islamic feminist scholarship. Secondly, it foregrounds voices that are often neglected in discussions of Islam, gender and sexuality by highlighting and contrasting the work of two key scholars: Kecia Ali based in the USA and Olfa Youssef based in Tunisia. The book suggests that in addition to geo-political positioning, language, as a ‘prior-text’, also influences an individual’s personal interpretation of Islamic feminism. This comparison, therefore, enables broader issues to be dissected, such as the interrelationships between life experiences, strategies of resistance to patriarchal and other forms of oppression, and the production of knowledge.

About the Author

Lana Sirri is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Source: Routledge