Feminist Interpretation of the Qur'an in a Comparative Feminist Setting

Abstract

The two major tasks of this paper are to outline current challenges in feminist interpretation of the Qur’an, and to assess where feminist Quranic interpretation stands in relation to feminist scholarship on the texts of other religious traditions. The first half summarizes some of the observations of Hidayatullah’s book, Feminist Edges of the Qur’an , in which she reevaluates the core assumptions about gender equality upon which feminist interpretations of the Qur’an have been based, concluding that contemporary expectations for gender equality are perhaps not reconcilable with the Qur’anic text. The second half compares the use of feminist methodology to interpret the Qur’an with its use to interpret the texts of other traditions; this comparison sheds new light on the questions engaged by feminist Qur’anic interpretation and contributes to discussions on the contours and possibilities of comparative feminist studies of religious texts.