Islamic Feminist Hermeneutics: Between Scholarship and Lived Realities

Islamic Feminist HermeneuticsBetween Scholarship and Lived Realities Mulki Al-Sharmani (bio) One critique leveled at Islamic feminist scholarship is that it is divorced from the realities of lay Muslim women.1 But is it? If I ask a Muslim woman in rural Egypt or in Finland if she has heard of Saʾdiyya Shaikh's tafsīr of praxis or amina wadud's notion of tawḥīd as social praxis, the answer might be no.2 But there is another way to pose the question: Do the questions that Islamic feminist scholars bring to Islamic texts speak to ordinary women? Can we find similarities between the interpretive engagements of these scholars and lay women's pursuits of religious meanings? My answer would be yes. My research since 2013 comprises textual analyses of the works of Islamic feminist scholars, collaborative writings with some of these scholars, and ethnographic research on lay Muslim women in Finland and Egypt who are engaging with the Qurʾan and the interpretive tradition as they live their daily lives. I argue that both Islamic feminist scholars and the lay women I have studied are equally concerned with making sense of the Qurʾan's key theological and ethical teachings and see them as integral to informing Muslim gender norms. Both grapple with the text and appreciate its aesthetics, seeing the latter as part of its overall message of beauty and justice. [End Page 95] Two examples illustrate these connections. In her scholarly writings on Sūrat al-Raḥmān, Omaima Abou-Bakr foregrounds the affective experience of encountering the Qurʾan and shows how central qurʾanic principles such as moral beauty, justice, and harmony are highlighted through the aesthetics of the text and traced back to the Oneness of God who is the source of existence in its multiplicity and diversity. Nadia, a fifty-year-old divorced Egyptian woman, grapples with patriarchal interpretations that justify polygamy, domestic violence, and child marriage. She has not read any Islamic feminist scholarship or engaged in gender activism. She is a Muslim who believes the Qurʾan is divine and normative. I have been conducting life history interviews with Nadia over two years.3 She shares how in the past she read the Qurʾan without tadabbur (reflection), but now she reflects on what she reads. In one of our interviews, she describes her reading practice: "I feel God is telling me about himself. I see the nature around me, and I read the sura [Sūrat al-Raḥmān], and I feel God. I feel God's power and justice. And it is so musical." While Nadia is not using the same conceptual language as Abou-Bakr, she captures the same understanding of qurʾanic ethos and affect. She is also making connections between what she sees and experiences around her (nature) and what she reads in the text. Life's trials such as losing a son to a car accident and an abusive marriage are also a lens through which she engages with the Qurʾan. Like Islamic feminist scholars, Nadia also reads Q 4:34 in light of her knowledge of other parts of the Qurʾan that talk about God's justice and men's and women's equal accountability. She rejects the idea of Qurʾan-sanctioned wife beating. Further, she argues that Prophet Muḥammad never beat a woman and that his wife Aisha said, "his character was the Qurʾan." Nadia's reading draws on some elements of the holistic, ethically oriented methodologies employed in Islamic feminist hermeneutics. One could counterargue that she is explaining away the tension in the text—a critique that is also leveled against Islamic feminist scholars.4 But my larger reflection point is that for Nadia and other lay women, the question of gender justice is interconnected with theology and ethics. Underlying their grappling with religiously based gender injustice are similar questions that also guide Islamic feminist scholars: What do we know about the nature of God and God's attributes? What is our purpose on this earth? And how does gender (injustice) speak to these larger questions? These shared questions between scholars and...