Cover -- Table of Contents -- Series editor's foreword -- Introduction. The New Voices of Muslim Women Theologians -- ISLAMIC LIBERALISM -- FEMALE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM AND THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT -- SCRIPTURAL FEMINIST METHODOLOGIES IN OTHER RELIGIONS -- PIETISTIC MOVEMENTS: ISL AMIST OR ISLAMIC FEMINISMS? -- MUSLIM WOMEN AS THEOLOGIANS -- THE PAPERS -- Part 1: Muslim Women as Theologians: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives -- Part 2: Religious Anthropology and Muslim Women -- Part 3: Muslim Women and Islamic Religious Law -- Part 4: Muslima Constructive Theology -- Early Community Politics and the Marginalization of Women in Islamic Intellectual History -- Muslim Women as Religious Scholars: A Historical Survey -- Introduction -- The importance of women's engagement with the foundational sources -- Women and the tradition of Qur'anic exegesis -- Women and the Transmission of Hadith -- Women and the legacy of fiqh -- 'Ā'isha: Reclaiming a tradition of women's engagement -- Conclusion -- Feminist Readings of the Qur'an: Social, Political, and Religious Implications -- QUESTIONS OF TERMINOLOGY -- FOUNDING MYTHS, PATRIARCHAL READINGS -- The use of historical myths in classical texts -- The creation myth -- MASCULINE PROPHETHOOD -- Feminist Hermeneutics: New Readings -- Fatima Mernissi: Critical Analysis of the Hadith -- Amina Wadud: The Centrality of the Qur'an and the Principle of Tawḥīd -- Asma Barlas: The Qur'an as an Anti-Patriarchal Text -- ADVANCES IN HERMENEUTICS -- SOCIAL-SPIRITUAL WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS -- 1. Transnational Movements -- Equality in all aspects -- 2. Local Movements -- A Piety Movement in Egypt: the dāʻiyāt -- A Sufi Movement in Syria: the Qubaysiyyāt -- The Preachers of Morocco: the murshidāt -- ACTIVITY IN MUSLIM WOMEN'S NETWORKS: BEYOND BORDERS -- Resistance to Islamic Feminisms -- CONCLUSION -- APPENDIX.

Transnational Islamic Feminist Networks -- National Organizations -- Collaboration in International Networks -- Muslim Feminist Theology in the United States -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Biographical Profiles -- 3. Historical Contextualization -- 4. Holistic/Intra-textual Reading -- 5. Tawḥīdic Paradigm -- 6. Future Directions -- Woman and Man's "fall": A Qur'anic Theological Perspective -- First Reference: Sūra 2: Al-Baqara: 35-39 -- Second Reference: Sūra 7: Al-A'rāf: 19-25 -- Third Reference: Sūra 20: Ṭā-Hā: 115-123 -- DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GENESIS, CHAPTER 3 AND THE QUR'ANIC TEXTS RELATING TO THE HUMAN PAIR'S DEPARTURE FROMAL-JANNA -- 1. Reason for the Beguiling of the Human Pair -- a. Sūra 2: Al-Baqara: 30-34, read as follows: -- b. Sūra 15: Al-Ḥijr: 26-43 -- c. Sūra 17: Al-Isrā': 61-64 -- d. Sūra 18: Al-Kahf: 50 -- e. Sūra 38: Ṣād: 71-85 -- 2. The Responsibility for the Act of Disobedience -- 3. The Act of Disobedience and its Consequences -- In Summation -- The Position of Woman in the Creation: A Qur'anic Perspective -- Introduction -- Relevant Verses: -- Common Origin of Male and Female Human Beings and Qur'anic Terminology -- The Treatment of the Verse in Exegesis -- The Reflection of the Problem in the Hadith -- Examples from the Accounts of the Creation of Woman -- Conclusion and Assessment -- Misogynistic Reports in the Hadith Literature -- 1. Hadith reports that speak about the view that woman was created "from Adam's rib" -- 2. The reports that claim that the majority of the in habitants of Hell are women -- 3. The reports that claim that women are lacking both in reason and religion, and that they at the same time lead men astray -- a. The discourse of female "lack of reason and religion" and its source -- b. The basis for the discourse of female deficiency in the sources.

c. The sedutiveness of believing women who are deficient in reason and religion, according to the reports -- 4. Reports that claim women are inauspicious -- 5. Reports in which women are mentioned in the same breath as donkeys and dogs -- such as the report which says that if a woman, donkey, or dog passes in front of a person who is performing the ritual prayer, his ritual prayer will be invalidated -- Gender Justice and Gender Jihad: Possibilities and Limits of Qur'anic Interpretation for Women's Liberation -- 1. Muslim women and Islamic traditions -- 2. Questions of Hermeneutics -- 3. Adam and Eve -- a. Non-Qur'anic creation stories -- b. Critical revisions -- c. Texts as mirrors of their time -- d. Hermeneutic Gender Jihad in the work of Amina Wadud -- 4. Possibilities and limits in dialogue with revealed scripture, hereneutic approaches, and interpretative findings -- Gendering Ritual: A Muslima's Reading of the Laws of Purity and Ritual Preclusion -- A Critical Perspective on Menstrual Etiquette in Ritual Law -- Fiqh Menstruation-Related Rules, in Brief -- Legal Methodology for Deriving Rules Related to Reproductive Defilements -- Somatic Indicator of Gender Difference -- Problematizing Male Epistemological Authority over Female Bodies -- Avenues for Further Inquiry -- Ibn Taymiyya's Feminism? Imprisonment and the Divorce Fatwās -- Introduction -- Ibn Taymiyya and Triple Repudiation -- Questioning Consensus: Analysis of Ibn Taymiyya's Stances -- Forced Marriage and the Hostage Motif -- Conclusion -- Sexing the Prayer: The Politics of Ritual and Feminist Activism in Indonesia -- The Theological Foundation of Imāmat al-Mar'a and Controversies Surrounding It -- Gendered Views of Women and the Sexed Prayer -- The Praxis of Imāmat al-Mar'a and Feminist Activism -- Concluding Remarks -- Violence against Women in Qur'an 4:34: A Sacred Ordinance?.

Methodology -- Traditional Scholars' Interpretations of the Key Concepts of this Verse -- Shortcomings in the Traditional Understandings of the Verse -- New Understandings of Verse 4:34 -- The Distortion of Qur'anic Concepts Produces Injustice against Women -- Recommendations -- From Sexual Difference to Religious Difference: Toward a Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism -- Contemporary Islamic Discourse on Religious Pluralism -- What's the Issue? Proximity and Othering -- Muslim Women Interpreters of the Qur'an: Conception of Difference -- Sameness, Difference(s), Relationality: Toward a Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism -- 1. Radical Difference Is Not an Option -- 2. Human Sameness (Creation and Human Nature) as the Starting Point -- 3. Sameness Alone Is Not an Option -- 4. Thinking of Difference Differently -- 5. Distinguishing between Lateral and Hierarchical Difference -- Conclusion -- Resisting the Veil of Universalism: Muslim Womanist Philosophy as a Lens for Authentic Representations of African American Muslim Women -- A Scholarly Journey to Islam -- Studying Muslims beyond the Veil of Christianity -- Muslim Womanist Philosophy: Mirroring Identity, Meeting a Need -- Womanist Religious Roots in the Context of the Mosque and the Church -- Conclusions -- In Search of al-Insān: Sufism, Islamic Law, and Gender -- Methodological Caveats -- Feminist Debates in Islamic Law -- Sufi Psychology and jihād Al-Nafs -- Ibn 'Arabī: Ontology and Human Purpose -- Divine Attributes and the Gendered Insān -- The Tawḥīdic Whole: Spiritual and Social Integrity -- Conclusion -- Book Bibliography -- Arabic Language -- All Other Languages (Including Turkish) -- Web Sources -- Contributor Biographies.