Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective

One cannot fully grasp the scope and significance of the work being done by and about women in Islam without reading Amina Wadud's Qur'an and Woman. This slim volume is probably the most widely read contemporary Qur'anic exegetical text in the world dealing with the concept of woman. In the decade since the publication of its first edition, printed in Malaysia, Qur 'an and Woman has been utilized by Muslim scholars and grassroots Muslim women's educational organizations across the globe, and it has been translated into several languages. Its widespread appeal and use among progressive Muslims is clear. It provides an analysis and critique of prevailing 'readings' of Qur'anic traditions that have caused or justified inequities between men and women—conceptually and actually—in the Islamic world. It also offers a sound hermeneutical methodology, a mode of interpretation, that includes women as agents of the on-going "reading" and interpretation of the Qur'an—particularly discourse on the concept of woman.