Amina Wadud and feminist interpretation of surah 4:34

von

Alexandra Samoleit

Erfurt, den 30.01.2007

Content

Summary... 3

1. Introduction... 3

2. Amina Wadud’s work in context of Muslim feminism and Qur’an exegesis... 4

2.1 Who is Amina Wadud?... 4
2.2 Feminism and the Qur’an... 5
2.3 Feminism and exegesis... 7

3. Hermeneutics and methodology in Amina Wadud’s Work... 9

3.1 The reader as subject... 9
3.2 Arabic language as barrier to interpretation... 10
3.3 Historical contextualisation... 11
3.4 Gender as interpretative category... 12

4. Amina Waduds exegesis... 13

4.1 General conclusions about women and the Qur’an... 13
4.2 The traditional interpretation of surah 4:34... 15
4.3 Amina Wadud’s interpretation of surah 4:34... 16

5. Resume... 17

Literature... 19

Summary

In this paper I will introduce the North-American Muslim scholar and feminist Amina Wadud. The main focus of her work is in finding ways to produce a gender-conscious tafsir of the Qur’an based on a hermeneutic methodology. She wants to show how the egalitarian quranic principles concerning women have been distorted through the history of exegesis. Those principles have to be re-examined to come to an understanding of the revelation that is appropriate for modern times.
I intend to integrate her position in a general Islamic feminist discourse and its opinion concerning quranic exegesis. Following that I want to outline her methodological approach, focusing on four points: the reader as subject, the Arabic language as barrier to interpretation, historical contextualization and gender as interpretive category. Further, I will give an overview about her exegetical results concerning the question of gender equality in the Qur’an before I will demonstrate her approach on the interpretation of surah 4:34.

1. Introduction

On March 18 in 2005 Amina Wadud, Afro-American scholar and converted Muslim led the Friday sermon of a group of 100 women and men in an Anglican church in Manhattan. This event caused an instant uproar within the global Islamic community and showed how conservative and unwilling to deal with change the majority of the Muslim public is. During the run-up to the sermon controversies already occurred when no mosque was willing to host the event. An art gallery in New York offered their rooms but withdrew the offer later when faced with bomb-threats.¹ The Islamic mass media reinforced the conservative sentiment of the majority of Islamic leaders who rejected the possibility of a female imam leading a prayer in front of a mixed group of Muslims. However there is no consensus about explicit quranic passages or strong hadiths which prohibit women from doing so.²
More progressive Muslims pointed out, that Amina Wadud, a convert growing up as an Afro- American woman in a Western society, has a different background and a different framework than someone living in a Muslim society. Therefore, her actions are result of the experience with Western values and norms about identity, economic achievement, political freedom and equal rights. Because of this, she seems to confuse her ambition to free herself from male domination with freeing herself from the Islamic laws which she believes are wrongly interpreted by men.³ This argument seems to lead to the core of discussion that lies beyond simple outrage about an event that should not have taken place because it violates Islamic law. The fear of change seems to be strongly tied to a fear of a schism between conservative Muslims and immigrants on the one side and a more liberal, maybe even western-modified generation that develops an understanding of religion which is no longer conform to that of their parent’s generation.⁴
And while conservative religious scholars and “sensational” Muslim mass media see an USAmerican conspiracy to desecrate Islam, only few feel the need to make the controversial aspects of Amina Wadud’s work and that of like-minded scholars an issue of importance within the whole Muslim community.⁵

2. Amina Wadud’s work in context of Muslim feminism and Qur’an exegesis

2.1 Who is Amina Wadud?

Amina Wadud is a known and important contemporary Muslim intellectual with a progressive, feminist focus on Qur’an exegesis. She has a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies and Arabic and started working at the International Islamic University in Malaysia in 1989. Since 1992 she teaches at the Virginia Commonwealth University and with the main topic of her work being Women and Qur’an and the patriarchal misinterpretation of the scripture. She took the shahada in 1972 after growing up as a Methodist. In her search for transcended tranquillity in spite of the discrimination she faced as a poor, black female she was introduced to Islam during her college years. She believes that her special perspective as a convert enabled her to ask critical questions and simultaneously offered a fresh perspective.⁶ Her attempt to come to a more egalitarian understanding of the Qur’an fits right into the feminist Muslim movement of the late 20th century, where feminists focus on the quranic text as primary source for their arguments. Therefore, as next step I will show how Amina Wadud’s perspective correlates with Muslim Feminism and the question of tafsir.

2.2 Feminism and the Qur’an

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1 Vgl. Dietrich, 2005.

2 Vgl. Muhammad, 2005:1.

3 Vgl. ebd.: 3f.

4 Vgl. Dietrich, 2005.

5 Vgl. Muhammad, 2005:8.

6 Vgl. Barlas, 2004:97f.