Conclusion Toward A Post-Foundationalist Islamic Feminism

Abstract

The limitations to which Mernissi falls prey, which are the search for authenticity, mystification, and foundationalism, are also symptomatic of the difficulties that Islamic feminism generally faces. This concluding chapter clarifies the author's point through additional comparisons between the scholarship of Mernissi and other scholars of Islamic feminism. It focuses on Amina Wadud's Qur'anic hermeneutics, which she contrasts with Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid's. She chooses to focus on these two figures because, like Mernissi, they espouse contextual reading. Wadud's different positions, adopted in her two books Qur'an and Woman and Inside the Gender Jihad, are especially instrumental in pointing out that Islamic feminist theory based on the postulate of the normativity of gender equality in the Qur'an has reached a theoretical dead end.Keywords: Amina Wadud; gender equality; Islamic feminist theory; Mernissi; Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid; post-foundationalist islamic feminism