For some reason the blog I posted a little over a year ago on multiple wives is the blog that has attracted the most attention. Apparently, that post struck a cord with some of you and has prompted me to post a sequel (albeit a year later).
There is a movement underway in Qur’anic scholarship to engage in a new interpretation of the Qur’an. Throughout Islam’s history, interpretation of the Qur’an has been traditionally the duty and responsibility of men. The problems with this are obvious. By not letting women have a say in interpretation, a major perspective is being silenced.
Amina Wadud, in her book Qur’an and Women: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective, makes a strong case for this new reading and provides some decent interpretation herself (to be fair there are some significant holes in some of her specific examples but for the most part her argument stands up).
Better still is Nimat Hafez Barazangi’s Woman’s Identity and the Qur’an: A New Reading. Barazangi calls for a new reading of the text, not with women in mind, but with justice in mind. Her argument is that the Qur’an is innately just and that if read with justice in mind, all manner of social justice beliefs would be apparent, including gender justice.
Apparently there is a stigma attached to the feminist label. Wadud goes out of her way to say she is not a feminist (although after reading her book I don’t see how she can make that claim) and Barazangi frames her thesis in terms of justice not feminism. Regardless of the label, I concur with both of their general arguments- women need to be more assertive in claiming the role of interpreter. This will only help diminish the negative connection that many make between Islam and the treatment of women.