Farid Esack's Hermeneutics in the Study of Women's Freedom and Justice

Farid Esack on Hermeneutic of Liberation from Thomas Kuhn’s Scientific Revolution PerspectiveThis article aims to elaborate on Farid Esack's Hermeneutic of Liberation from Thomas S Kuhn's scientific revolution perspective. The background of this study is the liberation of society from apartheid hegemony in South Africa in the 1949-1991 period; Farid Esack - from the beginning engaged in the practical political movement and now focuses on the scientific field - gave rise to new methodical ideas in the study of the Koran i.e hermeneutics of liberation; which is an effort to fight against racist rulers. From Kuhn's point of view, what Essack was doing was actually a scientific revolution. This assumption will be elaborated in this study. This study is a literature review using qualitative-content analysis as the data analysis technique. The results of this study are; first, his method of Qur'anic is a scientific revolution; which he supported the strengthening of the hermeneutical paradigm in the study of the Qur'an. In that way, secondly, as Kuhn requires that the new paradigm of scientific revolution must be supported by the scientific community, Farid Esack can be said to have a scientific community with Fazl Rahman, Hasan Hanafi, Mohamed Arkoun, Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, etc. Thus, it is worth waiting for the success of this community revolution; to strengthen hermeneutics as a new paradigm in Qur'anic study in the future

The interpretation of the term "leader" in reference to "auliya'" mentioned in Qs. al-Maidah: 51 has been a topic of debate among Indonesian Muslim scholars. In contrast to Farid Esack, who appears to lack understanding regarding the definition of leadership as it pertains to this verse, his focus remains firmly fixed on issues more relevant to the South African context. This study endeavors to propose Farid Esack's interpretation of the term auliya' in Qs. al-Maidah: 51, as it pertains to the South African context. Specifically, it examines his exploration of the word's meaning and delves into the implications of his unique perspective. This goal can be used as an alternative to other interpretations related to the word auliya' in Qs. al-Maidah. 51: 51. The research is a qualitative research with literature data which is analysed descriptively. The main data in this research is the meaning of the word auliya' in the book Qur'an Liberation & Pluralism by Farid Esack. The analysis of Esack's meaning presentation is conducted by examining the literature by revisionist mufassirs. The findings of this investigation conclude that Farid Esack, based on his liberation hermeneutics, interprets the term auliya to connote collaboration and solidarity. The implication of Esack's interpretation is that it is impermissible for a Muslim to collaborate with non-Muslims unless he does not forsake Muslims, intends to safeguard believers, has entered into a peace treaty with believers, and refrains from fighting against them. When contextualized within South Africa, Esack contends that a believer can cooperate with non-Muslims if it promotes the well-being of Muslims and combats racist conduct, oppression and injustice. However, to ascertain the pertinence of utilizing these interpretations within the Indonesian context, additional research is imperative. This study solely focuses on scrutinizing the outcomes and consequences of Esack's interpretation.

This article discusses Farid Esack 's epistemological side, who proposed an emancipatory interpretation of what was generally known as liberation hermeneutics in responding to social problems in South Africa. The method used in this research is the library method with analytical material and a historical-philosophical approach that functions to (a) analyze the text itself; (b) objectively trace the historical origins of the character's context, why it carried the hermeneutic idea of its liberation; and (c) analyze the socio-historical circumstances surrounding the character and find the essential building.
 Based on the research result, the researcher found that Farid Esack 's thought-building was highly motivated by South Africa's socio-historical circumstances enduring humanitarian problems (apartheid). Farid Esack used critical reasoning (al-aql al-naqdy) in which the role of revelation (text), truth (context), and interpreter (reader) was linked in the compilation of his tafsir book. Meanwhile, the method of interpretation was the hermeneutics of the Qur'an based on the context and life experiences of the South African people, whose results were intended as the philosophical basis for freeing the whole society from all types of inequality and exploitation of economy, race, gender, class, and religion.

This research discusses "Farid Esack's Hermeneutics of Al-Qur'an Liberation" with a focus on the method of interpreting the Al-Qur'an proposed by Farid Esack in the context of liberation. Farid Esack, a contemporary Muslim thinker, proposed a hermeneutical approach that creates a new understanding of the holy text of the Koran, with the aim of fighting for social justice, gender equality and human liberation. The main challenge faced in this research involves a deep understanding of Farid Esack's thought, as well as its application to the text of the Koran. The interpretation process involving social, political and cultural contexts requires criticality and caution so that the results can achieve the desired goal of liberation. The relevance of this topic in the world of education today is very important considering the complexity of the challenges faced by Muslim communities. A deep understanding of the liberation hermeneutics of the Koran can make a significant contribution in forming views that are inclusive, progressive and support human rights. Therefore, this research is not only an academic contribution, but also has a practical impact in guiding thought and action in realizing a more just and harmonious society.

This article discusses the concept of conflict resolution based on religious pluralism in the context of religious diversity in Indonesia by referring to liberation hermeneutics. The discourse on religious pluralism promoted by Farid Esack functions as a theological basis for resolving the racial conflict that occurred in South Africa, which is known as the apartheid system. This research is the result of a literature study which refers to the work of Farid Esack as the main source. With a historical-contextual approach, this research shows that according to Farid Esack, the Qur'an actually recognizes religious pluralism, which is not only limited to accepting other religions as legitimate socioreligious communities, but also recognizes their spirituality and salvation through different paths. . As the basis for his theology of pluralism, Farid Esack interprets three key ethical terms in the Koran which aim to define Muslim and non-Muslim identities. These three terms are the terms iman, Islam, and kufr. The reinterpretation of the meaning of these three terms was carried out to remove the rigidity of Islamic theology resulting from the standardization of these terms as they have been understood so far. By recognizing religious pluralism, solidarity and cooperation between religious communities can be more easily implemented to achieve mutual benefit in overcoming racial conflict. This concept is very possible to be applied in the context of national and state life in Indonesia. Religious diversity in Indonesia is not only seen as a trigger for conflict, but can also be used as a solution in dealing with various social and community problems. Keywords: Religious Pluralism, South Africa, Farid Esack, Conflict Resolution

This study aims to thoroughly explore the concept of a pluralist society from the perspective of Farid Esack in the context of practical politics in Indonesia. Religious diversity is a real event that cannot be denied in the nation and state. So that the existence of religious diversity is a gift that must be grateful for, even though all are challenges that must be faced by the people. The author uses Farid Esack's thinking because he sees Farid's history in different cultures, races, and religions. This research method is literature review or literature review. Data collection techniques with document studies, and data analysis using qualitative methods. Building a pluralist society with farid esack perspective in the context of practical politics in Indonesia can be done with pluralist concepts and hermeneutics.Keywords: Farid Esack, pluralist society, political perspective

Ziauddin Sardar is a Muslim thinker who interprets the Koran in a thematic-contextual, with a very critical presentation. Sardar’s interpretation is contained in one of his works entitled Reading the Qur’an: The Contemporary Relevance of the Sacred Text of Islam. This article aims to examine the thoughts of Sardar in terms of interpreting the Qur’an. The extent to which the methodology used by Sardar in interpreting the Qur’an. By using descriptive-analytical methods and hermeneutical-analysis techniques, Sardar’s interpretation is examined to what extent hermeneutic operational forms appear within them. It also examined how the influences of other figures in ‘shaping’ Sardar’s interpretation. The results of this study show that Sardar’s contextual interpretation reveals forms of hermeneutic surgery. Where more ‘aiming’ aspects of the context and contextualization of the Qur’an. Then methodologically, Sardar’s interpretation was influenced by Rahman’s double movement theory , and Saeed’s legal ethico theory . Then the style of “Hermeneutics of Liberation” Farid Esack was strongly felt in the contextualization of the Koran by Sardar. Sardar’s efforts are not limited to explaining the meaning of the Qur’an, but digging into the substance of the text that is manifested in the form of al-Qur’an’s social criticism of various religious phenomena today.

This study examines the application of legal hermeneutics in interpreting trademark law, particularly within the context of commercial dispute resolution. The legal issue under scrutiny lies in the inconsistency of judicial interpretations of trademark provisions, which often result in legal uncertainty and perceived injustice for business actors. The objective of this research is to analyze how the legal hermeneutic approach can offer a more contextual and equitable understanding in the interpretation of trademark law, especially in light of the evolving dynamics of modern commercial practices. This research employs a normative legal method, incorporating a hermeneutic approach. Data were collected through a literature review of statutory regulations, court decisions, and relevant academic literature. The hermeneutic framework is used to uncover the substantive meaning of legal norms within their social, economic, and cultural contexts. The novelty of this study lies in its application of legal hermeneutics to trademark disputes in Indonesia—an area that has predominantly been analyzed through textual or positivist lenses. The findings indicate that the hermeneutic approach reveals the teleological dimensions and substantive justice values embedded in trademark law interpretation. This method also contributes to producing judicial decisions that are more responsive to the complexities of business relations and consumer protection. The study recommends that judges and legal practitioners begin adopting a hermeneutic legal approach when handling trademark disputes, as a means to enhance legal legitimacy and ensure a more contextually grounded legal certainty

Farid Esack is an Islamic thinker from South Africa who proposes Liberation hermeneutics in comprehending the Qur’an from the perspective of Liberation Theology to realize justice. This article examines Esack’s hermeneutical method in interpreting Qur’an and analyses how he applies the spirit of liberation and justice as principles of Liberation Theology in his interpretation. This study shows that Esack’s hermeneutics differs from others because, as a liberation theologian, he puts liberative-praxis as the main objective of his liberation theology. His method does not only revolve around textual understanding but also push practical implication. He moves forward from praxis (experience) to texts and then goes back to experience. To him, interpretation must be able to encourage changes within society. Therefore, as the second feature of this method, in Esack’s hermeneutics, interpretation is not just scholarly speculative exercise which has no implication. It has a specific aim, namely is to establish a better life for society in which justice is a fundamental prerequisite.
 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20414/ujis.v20i1.822

Reviewed by: Freedom for Women: Forging the Women's Liberation Movement, 1953-1970 Carole Bucy (bio) Freedom for Women: Forging the Women's Liberation Movement, 1953-1970. By Carol Giardina. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010. Pp. xvi, 321. $69.95 cloth; $29.95 paper) [End Page 305] When African Americans began to challenge white supremacy in the 1960s, a small group of women saw an opportunity to challenge male supremacy at the same time. As new ideas about gender equality spread, Carol Giardina, an active member of the black power movement, became involved in the nascent women's movement. Now she has written Freedom for Women: Forging the Women's Liberation Movement, 1953-1970 to set the record straight about the birth of the modern women's movement. Believing that the accepted historical narrative of what became the women's liberation movement omitted the vital role that black women and other radicals played, Giardina has challenged the histories of the women's movement written by Sara Evans, Alice Echols, Joe Freeman, and Ruth Rosen. Giradina argues that these black feminists had considerable influence on the white feminists rather than the reverse. Histories of the women's movement have often focused on women as victims. Giardina argues that Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) leader Stokely Carmichael's well-known comment about women were made in jest and should never have been taken seriously. In her opinion, the disproportionate amount of continued discussion of Carmichael's remarks, as evidence of sexism within the civil rights movement, has distorted and overshadowed the positive things that women found in the SNCC. Although awareness of sexism was not new in the 1960s, the idea of challenging it was considered to be quite radical. "Freedom Summer," the summer of 1964, became a major turning point for women working to end discrimination in the South by attempting to register voters. The constant threat of violence led a small group of women to develop a strategy known as "Sisterhood is Powerful." These women came up with a conceptual framework for this new movement precisely because they were already familiar with these ideas from their civil rights work. They often already had a family history of activism, in some cases going back to the abolition movement or the early years of the Communist Party. As teenagers they had developed new awareness from reading Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949). While de Beauvoir's ideas provided them with a [End Page 306] guide for their personal lives, The Second Sex did not necessarily teach them how to put these ideas into practice. They learned activism in the civil rights movement. The publication of the Moynihan Report which blamed black women for problems within African American families further mobilized black women. Consciousness-raising sessions among small groups of women, an early strategy of black feminists, further expanded the movement. It helped other women see what gender discrimination actually was and brought awareness to a broader spectrum of women. These sessions provided the basis for mass organizing and political action. The protest at the 1968 Miss American Pageant brought the movement into the national spotlight. Shirley Chisholm's election to Congress that year along with feminist opposition to the appointment of G. Harrold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court two years later demonstrated that an independent movement was underway. In Giardina's view, it was precisely at this point after the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) by Congress that the movement made a turn from radical to moderate leadership. White, moderate, middle-class women assumed leadership positions in the women's liberation movement and then failed to listen to the recommendations by black women about how to get the ERA ratified. Giardina concludes that it was this failure of white women to work with black women that brought about the failure of the ERA. Carol Giardina has made an important contribution to women's history. By recovering the role of black women in the women's movement, she has greatly expanded our understanding of the critical role that black feminists played. Giardina's interpretation of these events provides a provocative analysis of the relationship of the...

This study explores Farid Esack's perspective on religious pluralism through the lens of Wilhelm Dilthey's hermeneutic theory, which emphasizes lived experience (Erlebnis), expression (Ausdruck), and understanding (Verstehen). Esack, a South African Muslim scholar and activist, developed his pluralistic thought in response to experiences of systemic injustice under apartheid and exposure to interfaith dynamics during his education in Pakistan. This research aims to analyze how Esack's personal experiences shaped his theological approach to pluralism and to articulate how his liberative hermeneutics of the Qur'an fosters interfaith solidarity and justice. Employing a qualitative, hermeneutic approach, the study interprets Esack's key writings in conjunction with his biographical context. The findings reveal that Esack's conception of pluralism transcends tolerance, emphasizing active recognition and cooperation across religious boundaries as a moral imperative rooted in Islamic teachings. His praxis-based hermeneutics advocate for justice, dignity, and liberation, particularly for the oppressed, offering a transformative model of interfaith engagement. This study contributes to contemporary Islamic discourse on pluralism, justice, and coexistence.

"Stay-ing the Course" The NWSA Journal moved to Iowa State University in June 2002, and in this new environment, and at the outset of the 21st century, the Journal is undergoing a variety of changes. For example, the editorial staff at Iowa State intends to place greater emphasis on women and science, a change evident in our first issue on the special topic, "(Re)gendering Science Fields," which was published in fall 2004. At the same time, we wish to acknowledge and sustain a sense of continuity with the past. For example, like founding editor Mary Jo Wagner, who introduced the first issue of the NWSA Journal in 1988, we expect to "raise critical questions in women's studies, with broad implications for the decades ahead" (2). Our editorial staff also remains committed to maintaining strong links between the National Women's Studies Association, with which the Journal is affiliated, as well as between the academy and feminist activism. We believe that academic feminism cannot preserve its vitality and engagement without a meaningful connection to feminist political practice. Women's Studies originated in feminist political practice, and in this era of backlash, the need for collaboration between activists and academics remains urgent. The NWSA Journal can more actively foster such collaboration by publishing more reports from the trenches and encouraging dialogue between academics and activists. In accord with this goal, we begin this issue with an interview with Ellen Messer-Davidow focused on her book, Disciplining Feminism. Messer-Davidow argues that because Women's Studies has become too removed from activism, a reorientation is needed to achieve feminist goals. Some readers may question Messer-Davidow's definition of activism, as do some interviewers at Iowa State; however, Disciplining Feminism raises important questions for feminists to consider. A number of essays in this volume focus upon activism—see, for example, "Stories 'That Only a Mother' Could Write: Midcentury Peace Activism, Maternalist Politics, and Judith Merril's Early Fiction"—and we plan to include more such essays in future issues. We also plan to include reports updating readers on the status of women's and gender studies programs/departments, and we intend to use interviews or forums to encourage conversations and collaborations between academics and activists to promote feminist goals in the academy and beyond. Feminists have had many successes in the past three decades, not the least of which is the institutionalization of women's studies programs in the United States; at the same time, women's freedoms are under increasing threat from fundamentalists, in the United States and internationally, who share a hatred of women. Such threats to women are the topic of a recent report from the National Women's Law Center entitled, [End Page vii] "Slip-Sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-Won Gains for Women Under the Bush Administration and an Agenda for Moving Forward" (April 2004). Whether located in the United States or elsewhere, fundamentalists hate women who compete with men in the workplace, who decide when or whether to bear children, and who show independence about getting abortions. Fundamentalists also hate homosexuality and the wide range of sexual orientations that have always characterized human societies, and they wish to impose a rigid "truth," with simple certainties, on all individuals. How, then, can feminists work collectively to advance and protect the rights of all women while, at the same time, respecting differences? This question of how different women can work together remains as urgent now as it was when editor Wagner raised it in 1988. Wagner quotes board member Tucker Farley whose words remain relevant today: When I stand on a street corner with my friend, a woman from China, the world she sees and describes, and the world I see and describe, are not the same. Thus what is possible for each of us to be doing is not the same either. And yet a nuclear bomb could eliminate both worlds simultaneously; in a sense we are in the same world, and it would be senseless for either to fight about which of our versions of reality is the correct one, or to shrug and say it does not matter. It makes a...

In 1977, a decade after the first women's studies courses appeared across the United States, the National Women's Studies Association was founded to promote and sustain "the educational strategy of a breakthrough in consciousness and knowledge" that would "transform" individuals, institutions, relationships, and, ultimately, the whole of society.' Insisting that the academic is political and the cognitive is affective, the NWSA's constitution clearly reflected the influence of the women's liberation movement on women's studies. Research and teaching at all educational levels and in all academic and community settings would be not

This paper explored the idea of Neal Robinson, Farid Esack and Abdullah Saeed in their books, Discovering The Qur'an: A Contemporary Approach To A Veiled Text, The Qur‟an: A User‟s Guide, and The Qur‟an: An Introduction in order to understand the living Qur‟an in moslem society. After reading these books, the writer found that the Qur‟an gave a strong presence in the lives of many Muslims. Various norms and practices concerning interaction with the Qur‟an have developed over time. Recitation of the Qur‟an was not only as Islamic artistic expression but also as a good reward. Memorizing al-Qur‟an is a demand and a need for many Muslims. In modern era, on one hand, the Qur‟an is always listened by electronic media, on the other hand, the Qur‟an was used as a protection from evil by wearing it as amulet. Ayahs of Qur‟an and certain surahs were believed that they have superiority and were recitated at specific times. Arabic calligraphy was considered one of the most important forms of Islamic artistic expressions. All in all,the Qur‟an was not only a guidance but also an ideology.

This study explores the recontextualization of Farid Esack's liberation theology in addressing the challenges of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) in the 21st century. Esack, a progressive Muslim theologian, focuses on social justice, pluralism, and advocacy for the oppressed as a response to global uncertainties arising from economic instability, political conflict, and environmental crises. The research employs critical discourse analysis to examine how Esack's interpretation can provide a critical framework for Muslims to respond to the changing times full of uncertainty. The findings reveal that Esack's liberation theology offers an inclusive foundation for building global solidarity across religions and nations, emphasizing principles of social justice and equality. Esack's approach also promotes flexibility in religious interpretation, which is crucial in facing moral ambiguities and socio-political complexities in the modern era. This study aims to contribute to the development of a more contextual and responsive Islamic interpretation that addresses global challenges.