A Feministic Re-reading of the Quran: Studying the Views of Amina Wadud in Quran and Woman

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Abstract

The effect of gender on comprehending the texts has turned into one of the important issues in the field of comprehending religious texts over the last decades. With the emergence and development of feministic sciences, this theory has been extended to feminine reading of religious and Islamic texts. Amina Wadud (born in 1952), a newly-converted African American Muslim, is one the active researchers of this field of study, with a progressive focus on the holy Qur'an. The present paper studies Amina Wadud's views in her main work, Quran and Woman. She claims that the manners by which women have been treated so far under Islamic tradition, have not been very fair and what lies at the root of this inequality is that commentaries on the Quran have all been written and organized by men and based on their needs, perceptions, and concerns. Given that, she has attempted to come to novel interpretations of Islamic principles and concepts about women via re-reading the holy Quran and based on modern perceptions and expectations of women.

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