Gender-Based Research in Qur'anic Studies: Concluding Remarks

Gender-Based Research in Qur'anic StudiesConcluding Remarks Nevin Reda (bio) To conclude, this roundtable has demonstrated a variety of new and continuing directions in gender-based research in qurʾanic studies. It suggests that the field is diverse and pluralistic, not always univocal, and often engaging a plethora of methodological and theoretical frameworks. Feminist and other gender-based Qurʾan scholarship has moved beyond the immediate confines of the Qurʾan and has widened the scope of scholarly investigations to encompass tafsīr (exegesis), hadith, āthār (reports transmitted from the first two generations of Muslims), and other extra-qurʾanic corpora, as can be noted in the work of Hadia Mubarak, Rahel Fischbach, and Yasmin Amin in this volume (and Fatima Mernissi before that).1 It continues to be in conversation with multiple discourses and conversation partners, including non-Muslim Western academia, as one can note in Halla Attallah's engagement with the ideas of Rosemarie Garland-Thomson on the intersection of femininity and disability. While in the past feminist engagement focused more on masculinist constructions of women and femininity, today women scholars are seeing the need to critique constructions of masculinity and to offer their own readings of ideal masculinity, as one can note in the work of Yasmin Amin (and the broader work of Omaima Abou-Bakr).2 The tightrope that faith-based Muslim women scholars must walk when introducing constructive methodologies and theologically grounded epistemes into largely "secular" academic settings, while at the same time maintaining credibility in practical, faith-based settings, is eloquently addressed in the contributions of Celene Ibrahim and Mahjabeen Dhala. One can note the connection between Muslim women's lived experiences and the [End Page 101] questions that Islamic feminist scholars pose in Mulki Al-Sharmani's ethnographic research and Roshan Iqbal's arguments for reappraising fiqh related to sexual ethics. The spiritual turn is vividly illustrated in the scholarship of Amira Abou-Taleb and Omaima Abou-Bakr, who highlight the importance of the aesthetic and spiritual dimensions, as well as their connection to the Qurʾan's moral foundation, including the central value of justice. The focus on language and intra-qurʾanic coherence remains alive and well, as one can note in the work of Abla Hasan, who embodies an intertextual Qurʾan-centric hermeneutic, highlighting the gap between the literal text of the Qurʾan and heritage-based interpretations. Always, however, we remain conscious of the debt we owe to those who established the cornerstones of Muslim women's Qurʾan scholarship before us, upon whose work we build and from whose accomplishments we take inspiration. Foremost among these trailblazers are amina wadud, Asma Barlas, Riffat Hassan, and Azizah al-Hibri, who established this field in the Western academy, and Omaima Abou-Bakr, who works in both local Arabic-speaking and international contexts. In this field, these are our "shuyūkh" (elders) who have opened the door of women's scholarly investigation into the Qurʾan and paved the way for women to become Qurʾan scholars. Their work has made so many of these new directions possible. Where does justice stand within these emerging methodologies and epistemologies? In the tradition of amina wadud and Asma Barlas, I see the Qurʾan conveying a message of justice, especially gender justice, although I do recognize that there can be different, competing understandings of justice within the plethora of discourses in contemporary academia. I see the Qurʾan contributing highly sophisticated notions of justice, carefully weighing between two concepts: qist (equity, social justice) and 'adl (justice, equality), and I recognize the tensions between the two and how this tension can promote growth in terms of actualizing deeper experiences of justice. If one can consider 'adl to be a jalālī (majestic) manifestation of justice due to its nuance of absoluteness and finality, qisṭ would be a jamālī (beautiful) one, since it incorporates raḥma (compassion) for the vulnerable (as one can see in the case of widows and orphans in Q 4:3, for instance). The treatment of some of these sophisticated notions of justice in the context of relations between men and women suggests that this is...