Books on Islamic Feminism

Below is a list of books that I recommend to anyone interested in understanding re-interpretations of Islam, alternative readings to the traditionalist ones that are largely patriarchal in nature, or otherwise scholarship that complicate simplified ideas of Islam, women, gender, and sexuality. These books may be a response to western, orientalist images of gender issues in Islam and Muslim societies, or they may be a response to traditionalist, patriarchal Islam’s problematic assumptions and teachings of women, gender, and sexuality — or both, as is often the case.  Either way, the following are breaths of fresh air, I promise.

Needless to say, the list is not comprehensive and not intended to be such.  I invite – and will appreciate – any and all additions.

In addition to the following scholarship, another great resource is the Religion and Feminism blog where Kecia Ali, Laury Silvers, Amina Wadud, and other Muslims write frequently on Islamic feminism and related themes. Please click these links to reach the writings of the respective authors: Kecia Ali | Laury Silvers | Amina Wadud | Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente | Jameelah X. Medina | And let me do some shameless self-promotion or whatevz and link y’all to my article over at the same blog titled Why I am an Islamic Feminist.

Islamic Feminism, Feminist/Progressive/Gender-Egalitarian Interpretations of Islam (or: scholarship that challenges dominant orientalist (re)presentations of Muslims/Islam and the dominant mainstream interpretations of Islam and Muslim women)

Listed in order of author’s last name. P.S. I plan, at some point, to categorize them better, since the list is getting longer by the week!

• Nabia Abbott’s Aishah: The Beloved of Mohammed (available online for free at UChicago.edu)
• Nabia Abbott’s Two Queens of Baghdad (also available online for free at UChicago.edu)
• Lilah Abu-Lughod’s Do Muslim Women Need Saving?
• Rukhsana Ahmad’s (edited volume of poetry) We Sinful Women: Contemporary Feminist Urdu Poetry (includes both the original Urdu as well as English translations)
• Leila Ahmed’s A Border Passage: From Cairo to America–A Woman’s Journey
• Leila Ahmed’s A Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence, from the Middle East to America
• Leila Ahmed’s Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate
• Kecia Ali, Juliane Hammer, and Laury Silver’s (edited volume) A Jihad for Justice: Honoring the Work and Life of Amina Wadud
• Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith and Jurisprudence
• Yasmin Amin’s (MA thesis) “Umm Salama and Her Hadith” (not accessible here, but the author can be contacted for access)
• Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im’s Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a
• Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im’s Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, and International Law
• Zainah Anwar and Ziba Mir-Hosseini’s (article) Decoding the “DNA of Patriarchy” in Muslim Family Laws
• Mohammed Arkoun’s Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers
• Ednan Aslan, Marcia Hermansen, and Elif Medeni’s (edited volume) Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians
• Reza Aslan’s No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam
• Hina Azam’s (article) “The exclusion of Women’s Testimony in The Hudud: Toward a Rethinking”
• Hina Azam’s (article) “Rape in Islamic Law”
• Hina Azam’s Sexual Violation in Islamic Law: Substance, Evidence, and Procedure
• Margot Badran’s Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences
• Margot Badran & miriam cooke’s Opening the Gates, Second Edition: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing
• Nimat Hafez Barazangi’s Woman’s Identity and the Qur’an: A New Reading
• Asma Barlas’s Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an
• Asma Barlas’s (article) Muslim Women and Sexual Oppression: Reading Liberation from the Qur’an; Conference Presentation The Qur’an, Sexual Equality, and Feminism
• Beth Baron’s Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics
• Beth Baron’s The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press
• Karen Bauer’s Gender Hierarchy in the Qur’ān: Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses
• Marilyn Booth’s May Her Likes Be Multiplied: Biography and Gender Politics in Egypt
• Benazir Bhutto’s Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography
• Ayesha Chaudhry’s Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition
• Ayesha Chaudhry’s (article) “The Problems of Conscience and Hermeneutics: A Few Contemporary Approaches”
• Ayesha Chaudhry’s (article) “Islamic Legal Studies: A Critical Historiography”
• miriam cooke & Margot Badran’s Opening the Gates, Second Edition: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing
• miriam cooke’s Women Claim Islam: Creating Islamic Feminism Through Literature
• Anita Desai’s The Quilt and Other Stories
• Asghar Ali Engineer’s Islam Women and Gender Justice
• Asghar Ali Engineer’s The Qu’ran, Women and Modern Society
• Asghar Ali Engineer’s Rights of Women in Islam
• Khaled Abou El-Fadl’s The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists
• Khaled Abou El-Fadl’s The Place of Tolerance in Islam
• Khaled Abou El-Fadl’s Reasoning with God: Reclaiming Shari’ah in the Modern Age
• Khaled Abou El-Fadl’s Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women
• Khaled Abou-El-Fadl: The website http://scholarofthehouse.org/ is a dedication to the works of Khaled Abou El-Fadl.
• Aisha Geissinger’s Gender and Muslim Constructions of Exegetical Authority: A Rereading of the Classical Genre of Qur’an Commentary
• Yvonne Haddad, John Esposito’s (edited volume) Daughters of Abraham: Feminist Thought in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
• Juliane Hammer’s American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More Than a Prayer
• Riffat Hassan’s (article) “Equal Before Allah? Woman-Man Equality in the Islamic Tradition”
• Aysha Hidayatullah’s Feminist Edges of the Qur’an
• Wilson Jacob’s Working Out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and Subject Formation in Colonial Modernity, 1870–1940
• Suad Joseph’s Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East
• Deniz Kandiyoti’s Gendering the Middle East: Emerging Perspective
• Deniz Kandiyoti’s (edited volume) Women, Islam and the State
• Marion Katz’s Women in the Mosque: A History of Legal Thought and Social Practice
• Nikki Keddie and Beth Baron’s (edited volume) Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender
• Remke Kruk’s The Warrior Women of Islam: Female Empowerment in Arabic Popular Literature
• Scott Kugle’s Homosexuality in Islam: Islamic Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims
• Anitta Kynsilehto’s (edited volume) Islamic Feminism: Current Perspectives
• Jerusha Lamptey’s Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism
• Saba Mahmood’s Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
• Meena Sharify-Funk’s Encountering the Transnational: Women, Islam and the Politics of Interpretation
• Fatima Mernissi’s Beyond the Veil, Revised Edition: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society
• Fatima Mernissi’s Forgotten Queens of Islam
• Fatima Mernissi’s Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood
• Fatima Mernissi’s The Harem Within: Tales of a Moroccan Girlhood
• Fatima Mernissi’s Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems
• Fatima Mernissi’s The Veil And The Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights In Islam
• Gina Messina-Dysert, Jennifer Zobair, and Ami Levin’s (anthology of personal stories at the intersection of feminism and religion) Faithfully Feminist: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Feminists on Why We Stay (I SPEAK FOR MYSELF)
• Ziba Mir-Hosseini’s Control and Sexuality: The Revival of Zina Laws in Muslim Contexts
• Ziba Mir-Hosseini’s Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law: Justice and Ethics in the Islamic Legal Process
• Ziba Mir-Hosseini’s (article) “How to Challenge the Patriarchal Ethics of Muslim Legal Tradition”
• Ziba Mir-Hosseini’s Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran
• Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger’s (edited volume) Men in Charge?: Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition (P.S. my review of this book can be accessed here)
• Ziba Mir-Hosseini’s (article) “Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality: Between Islamic Law and Feminism”
• Asma Lamrabet’s Women in the Qur’an: An Emancipatory Reading
• Valentine Moghadam’s (article) “Islamic Feminism and its Discontents: Towards a Resolution of the Debate”
• Haideh Moghissi’s Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis
• Hadia Mubarak’s (article) “Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34” (please contact the author to access the article)
• Sachiko Murata’s The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought
• Nima Naghibi’s Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran
• Afsaneh Najmabadi’s Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity
• Afsaneh Najmabadi Professing Selves: Transsexuality and Same-Sex Desire in Contemporary Iran
• Khaled El-Rouayheb’s Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800
• Omid Safi’s (edited volume) Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism (Note: Omid Safi’s blog, What Would Muhammad Do? is also a great read.)
• Raja Rhouni’s Secular and Islamic Feminist Critiques in the Work of Fatima Mernissi (Women and Gender: The Middle East and the Islamic World)
• Asma Sayeed’s Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam (Note: An e-copy of this book is available online for free through the publisher, Cambridge University Press. Please click here to access it.)
• Sa’diyya Shaikh’s Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn ‘Arab?, Gender, and Sexuality
• Sa’diyya Shaikh’s (article) “Tafsir of Praxis”
• Faegheh Shirazi’s (edited volume) Velvet Jihad: Muslim Women’s Quiet Resistance to Islamic Fundamentalism
• Hania Sholkamy’s (edited volume) Contestations: Dialogues on Women’s Empowerment – Issue 1: Islam and Feminism
• Laury Silvers’ (article) “Early Pious, Mystic Sufi Women”
• Laury Silvers’ (article) “In the Book We have Left out Nothing”: The Ethical Problem of the Existence of Verse 4:34 in the Qur’an (NOTE: More of Laury Silvers’ scholarship can be accessed on her website as follows: Books | Articles and Chapters
• Amanullah De Sondy’s The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities
• Denise Spellberg’s Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past
• Barbara Stowasser’s Women in the Qur’an, Traditions, and Interpretation
• Amina Wadud’s Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective
• Amina Wadud’s Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam
• Mai Yamani’s (edited volume) Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives
• Lamia Ben Youssef Zayzafoon’s The Production of the Muslim Woman: Negotiating Text, History, and Ideology
• Olfa Youssef’s The Perplexity of a Muslim Woman: Over Inheritance, Marriage, and Homosexuality (see my review of the book here)

Other feminist/gender egalitarian resources

• Sisters in Islam (click the “Knowledge Resources” tab at the top)
• WISE Muslim Women
• Women Living Under Muslim Laws – virtually everything here.
• Women’s Contributions to Classical Islamic Civilizations