Books on Islamic Feminism

Originally posted on my Wordpress blog.

Below is a list of books that I highly 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

Listed in order of author’s last name.

• Nabia Abbott’s Aishah: The Beloved of Mohammed
• Nabia Abbott’s Two Queens of Baghdad
• 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 in Islam: Feminist Reflections on the Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence
• Yasmin Amin’s (article) “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
• Asma Barlas’s Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an
• 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”
• 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
• 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.
• Khaled El-Rouayheb’s Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800
• 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
• 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
• Ms Sharify-Funk Meena’s Encountering the Transnational: Women, Islam and the Politics of Interpretation
• 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
• 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’s (edited volume) Men in Charge?: Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition
• Ziba Mir-Hosseini’s (article) “Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality: Between Islamic Law and Feminism”
• Valentine Moghadam’s (article) “Islamic Feminism and its Discontents: Towards a Resolution of the Debate”
• Hadi 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 Najamabadi’s  Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity
• 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.)
• 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”
• 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
• Women Living Under Muslim Laws – virtually everything here.