Gender Identity in the Qur’an

             Too many people hear Islam and think of oppressed women. When I converted to Islam, my mom even yelled at me, “How can you stand next to those wife beaters and pray!” That was before she decided to learn more about Islam. Western civilization and culture is different than that in the Middle East, to be sure, but even many Muslims have a misconception of gender in the Qur’an, based on how they interpret the language, or because they follow scholars that have a bias and thus a biased interpretation of the Qur’an. 

          Every person who reads the Qur’an is likely to have some personal bias in the reading based on their “prior text” (perspectives, circumstances, and background). We all have formed beliefs about life based on our experiences. It is difficult to be completely objective when interpreting something. Amina Wadud-Muhsin, a professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University wrote a paper with an introduction called, “How Perceptions of Women Influence Interpretations on the Qur’an” to tackle the question of gender identity in the Qur’an.

            Traditional tafasir (exegetical works) give interpretations of the Qur’an that objections in mind and were written by males, exclusively, leaving women voiceless in most legal interpretations. Many feminists and anti-Islam scholars react to severe handy-caps of women in these interpretations by forming interpretations with their own objectives in mind. Wadud-Muhsin decided to take a different course. Hers is one that will use “the interpretations which reconsider the whole method of Qur’anic exegesis with regard to various modern social, moral, economic, and political concerns – including the issue of woman”. To meet her goal of making a reading that comes from within a female experience, she used a hermeneutical model, which considers context, grammar, and whole text or Weltanschauung world view.

            Wadud-Muhsin argues against conventional interpretations, especially concerning certain words and their translation from Arabic to English. As such, she explains how the masculine plural in Arabic may include women, as long as there is at least one man present. If a plural is to refer to women only, it is feminine in form. There is no form exclusively for males. As such, all plural masculine forms should be considered for females as well.

            The author also argues that the Qur’an is meant for all people and all nations and therefore is not meant to be static with one cultural situation. Such as, modesty in ancient Arabia meant one thing, and modesty in America means another. They may not be equal, but neither do they need to be. She also argues that “those who argue that the Qur’an cannot be translated believe that there is some necessary correlation between Arabic and the message itself” and that “gender distinction, an inherent flaw, necessary for human communication in the Arabic, is overcome by the text in order to fulfill its intention of universal guidance.”

            She claims that interpretation of the Qur’an can never be final, as the world is always changing and each person brings their own past with them in the interpretations.

Written for my Modern Muslim Thought class on 3/12/12