A number of classical Sunnī Quran commentaries quote several different types of exegetical materials attributed to a few female figures from the first century A.H/seventh century C.E.—āthār, ḥadīths, legal opinions and variant readings, as well as lines of poetry. In Gender and Muslim Constructions of Exegetical Authority, Aisha Geissinger provides a comprehensive introduction to such quotations, and offers an analysis of their place and significance within the pre-modern genre of Quran commentary, demonstrating that key hermeneutical concepts in classical quranic exegesis (tafsīr) are gendered. Bringing together materials which have not previously been examined in detail and utilising gender as a lens through which to study them, this work provides a new approach to the study of pre-modern tafsīr.

This volume challenges a long history of normalizing patriarchal approaches to the Qur’an and calls for a questioning of the interpretive credibility of many inherited Qur’anic commentaries. The author presents a fresh reading of the sacred text and Islamic teaching traditions as the rediscovery of a lost humanitarian and gender-egalitarian textual richness that has been poorly and loosely handled for centuries. The book stresses the importance of reviewing the interpretive linguistic choices that jurists and exegetes over the last fourteen centuries have adopted to semantically reshape the Qur’anic text. The vigilant reading the author provides of carefully chosen texts and commentaries suggests that many interpretive approaches to the Qur’an are dominated by sociopolitical factors alien to the intrinsic values of the text itself. More importantly, inconsistencies across putatively sound books of tafsīr indicate that the Qur’anic text often suffers from historical and systematic drainage of its humanitarianism, gender-egalitarianism, and religious pluralism.

The formative period of Islam remains highly contested. From the beginning of modern scholarship on this formative period, scholars have questioned traditional Muslim accounts on early Islam. The scholarly fixation is mirrored by sectarian groups and movements within Islam, most of which trace their origins to this period. Moreover, contemporary movements from Salafists to modernists continue to point to Islam’s origins to justify their positions. This Handbook provides a definitive overview of early Islam and how this period was understood and deployed by later Muslims. It is split into four main parts, the first of which explores the debates and positions on the critical texts and figures of early Islam. The second part turns to the communities that identified their origins with the Qurʾān and Muḥammad. In addition to the development of Muslim identities and polities, of particular focus is the relationship with groups outside or movements inside of the umma (the collective community of Muslims). The third part looks beyond what happened from the 7th to the 9th centuries CE and explores what that period, the events, figures, and texts have meant for Muslims in the past and what they mean for Muslims today. Not all Muslims or scholars are willing to merely reinterpret early Islam and its sources, though; some are willing to jettison parts, or even all, of the edifice that has been constructed over almost a millennium and a half. The Handbook therefore concludes with discussions of re-imaginations and revisions of early Islam and its sources. Almost every major debate in the study of Islam and among Muslims looks to the formative period of Islam. The wide range of contributions from many of the leading academic experts on the subject therefore means that this book will be a valuable resource for all students and scholars of Islamic studies, as well as for anyone with an interest in early Islam.

Given the intense political scrutiny of Islam and Muslims, which often centres on gendered concerns, The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender is an outstanding reference source to key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into seven parts: Foundational texts in historical and contemporary contexts Sex, sexuality, and gender difference Gendered piety and authority Political and religious displacements Negotiating law, ethics, and normativity Vulnerability, care, and violence in Muslim families Representation, commodification, and popular culture These sections examine key debates and problems, including: feminist and queer approaches to the Qur’an, hadith, Islamic law, and ethics, Sufism, devotional practice, pilgrimage, charity, female religious authority, global politics of feminism, material and consumer culture, masculinity, fertility and the family, sexuality, sexual rights, domestic violence, marriage practices, and gendered representations of Muslims in film and media. The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, Islamic studies, and gender studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as cultural studies, area studies, sociology, anthropology, and history.

The relationship between Islam and feminism is complex. There are many Muslim scholars who fervently promote women's equality. At the same time, there is ambivalence regarding the general norms, terminology, and approaches of feminism and feminist theology. This ambivalence is in large part a product of various hegemonic, androcentric, and patriarchal discourses that seek to dictate legitimate and authoritative interpretations. These discourses not only fuel ambivalence, they also effectively obscure valuable possibilities related to interreligious feminist engagement. Divine Words, Female Voices is the follow-up to Jerusha Lamptey's 2014 book, Never Wholly Other, in which she introduced the idea of "Muslima" theology and applied it to the topic of religious diversity. In this new book, she extends her earlier arguments to contend that interreligious feminist engagement is both a theologically valid endeavor and a vital resource for Muslim women scholars. She introduces comparative feminist theology as a method for overcoming challenges associated with interreligious feminist engagement, reorients comparative discussions to focus on the two "Divine Words" (the Qur'an and Jesus) and feminist theology, and uses this reorientation to examine intersections, discontinuities, and insights related to diverse theological topics. This book is distinctive in its responsiveness to calls for new approaches in Islamic feminist theology, its use of the method of comparative theology, its focus on Muslim and Christian feminist theology in comparative analysis, and its constructive articulation of Muslima theological perspectives.

Mulki Al-Sharmani undertakes a close textual analysis of the hermeneutics of selected Islamic feminism scholars as they engage with the Qur'an, Hadith, and different textual genres in Islamic interpretive tradition. She focuses on the relevant works of nine prominent scholars located in North America, Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa. Bringing their works into conversation with one another, Islamic Feminism critically examines the epistemological and methodological contributions and challenges of these scholars. Al-Sharmani shows how these scholars' engagements with the question of gender also yields new insights into the interplay between Islamic theology, ethics, and law. Drawing on extensive multi-sited ethnographic research, Al-Sharmani examines the societal significance and limits of the studied scholarship and how it informs and is informed by multidimensional Muslim gender activism in both global and local contexts. Towards the latter aim, Al-Sharmani focuses on two case studies: the global movement Musawah, and Egyptian Islamic feminism in the aftermath of the 2011 Revolution.

Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands brings into conversation the distinct fields of tafs=ir (Qur'anic exegesis) studies and women's studies by exploring significant shifts in modern Qur'anic commentaries on the subject of women. Hadia Mubarak places three of the most influential, Sunni Qur'anic commentaries in the twentieth century- Tafs=ir al-Man=ar, F=i Zil=al al-Qur'an, and al-Tahr=ir wa'l-Tanw=ir - against the backdrop of broader historical, intellectual, and political developments in modern North Africa. Mubarak illustrates the ways in which colonialism, nationalism, and modernization set into motion new ways of engaging with the subject of women in the Qur'an. Focusing her analysis on Qur'anic commentaries as a scholarly genre, Mubarak offers a critical and comparative analysis of these three modern commentaries with seven medieval commentaries, spanning from the ninth to fourteenth centuries, on verses dealing with neglectful husbands (4:128), rebellious wives (4:34), polygyny (4:3), and divorce (2:228). In contrast to assessments of the exegetical tradition as monolithically patriarchal, this book captures a medieval and modern tafs=ir tradition with pluralistic, complex, and evolving interpretations of women and gender in the Qur'an. Rather than pit a seemingly egalitarian Qur'an against an allegedly patriarchal exegetical tradition, Mubarak affirms the need for a critical engagement with tafs=ir studies among scholars concerned with women and gender in Islam. Mubarak argues that the capacity to bring new meanings to bear on the Qur'an is not only an intellectually viable one but inherent to the exegetical tradition.