MODERN MUSLIM INTELLECTUALS AND THE QUR’AN : Amina Wadud

Asma Barlas has contributed a chapter on Amina Wadud's hermeneutics from women's perspective. Her chapter is aptly titled "Amina Wadud's hermeneutics of the Qur'an: women reading sacred texts." Needless to say the Islamic world is far from emerging from patriarchal values and the traditional 'ulama are immersed neck-deep into these values. Any deviation from them is denounced as unpardonable heresy. Unfortunately there have been very few attempts to commit this 'heresy'. The Islamic world has hardly produced women reading the holy text from their own viewpoint.

 

Amina Wadud is one among those women who are struggling to assert women's reading of the only text. She is not from any Muslim country but from USA. She is an African American Muslim though she has taught at the Islamic University of Malaysia for few years. But controversies dogged her there too. A definite methodology is needed to read the Qur'an from women's perspective. And Amina Wadud does develop her own methodology of reading and understanding the Qur'an.

 

Barlas points out that "Wadud believes that reading the Qur'an piecemeal and in a decontextualised way not only ignores its internal coherence, or nazm, but it also fails to recover the broad principles that underlie its teachings, as Fazlur Rahman also argues. As a result, most exegetes end up generalising specific Quranic injunctions, a practice Wadud believes is particularly oppressive to women in that some of the most harmful restrictions against them result 'from interpreting Qur'anic solutions for particular problems as if they were universal problems'". She gives the example of how traditional exegetes have interpreted the Qur'anic provisions on dressing.

 

Amina Wadud clarifies, "...the Qur'an establishes a universal notion regarding matters of dress and asserts that 'the dress of piety is best'. However, Shari'ah (Islamic law) uses the Qur'anic references to particular 7th century Arabian styles of dress as the basis of its legal conclusion regarding modesty. Consequently wearing a particular item of dress (for example, the head covering) is deemed an appropriate demonstration of modesty."

 

Wadud thus points out that universalising the veil, thus also universalises the 'culturally and economically determined demonstrations of modesty' in seventh century Arab society, thereby imparting a cultural specificity to the Qur'an's teachings. To her, this actually limits the application of these teachings inasmuch as cultures do not necessarily have identical ideas about modesty. Wadud thus argues that what the Qur'an teaches is the 'principle of modesty, not the veiling and seclusion which were manifestations particular to [the Arab] context.

 

However, in the Islamic world today veiling in the Arab way is considered a the universal principle of Islam and most of the non-Arab Muslim countries feel it obligatory to imitate this veiling and consider this kind of veils as the only way to protect one's modesty. What is more, it has also become for women the visible symbol of Islamic identity, especially in the alien western culture. Amina rightly thinks that it is a challenge for every new generation of Muslims 'to understand the principles intended by the particulars [since the] principles are eternal and can be applied in various social contexts.'

 

One also has to understand that the Qur'an was revealed in history and in particular social, cultural and historical conditions and it was a response to these circumstances in addition to being a universal guide for entire humanity. Thus one will have to separate the particular from the universal and, as pointed out by Amina Wadud and also by several other Islamic thinkers, every new generation has to discharge this responsibility in a creative way. 

 

As Amina says, 'it is God's response through Muhammad's mind this latter factor has been radically underplayed by the Islamic orthodoxy to a historical situation (a factor likewise drastically restricted by the Islamic orthodoxy in a real understanding of the Qur'an).' 

 

Amina also feels that 'gendered language' is used for God. God is referred to as 'He', a masculine gender though language cannot express 'what cannot be uttered in language and even though the Qur'an expressly forbids using similitudes for God. So she says the Muslims should realise that language about God 'cannot be interpreted empirically and literally.' Of course all along for centuries masculine gender has been used for God in all major world religions. Now some feminists are raising this question whether one can use masculine gender or gendered language at all for God. Some feminists even use 'She' for God. But Amina wants to go beyond gendered language for God. To transcend gendered language in case of God is an important point.

 

Wadud comes out with another novel argument for equality of sexes. She maintains that the purpose of "human creation was revealed when God said, 'Verily, I am going to create a khalifah (caretaker, vice-regent, or trustee) on the earth' [Q. 2:38] Khilafah (trusteeship) on the planet is the responsibility of each human. In the Qur'anic worldview, fulfillment of this trust constitutes the raison d'être of human existence. [Hence, to] deny full personhood to women is to deny them the full capacity of their fulfilling the basic responsibility decreed by God for all of humankind."

 

Thus Amina reads the Qur'an so as to develop arguments in favour of women and their equality with men. It is only a woman reading the Qur'an who can advance such arguments because she reads it from her perspective and for centuries so far it is men who have read and commented on the Qur'anic text. Thus it is necessary that the Qur'an be read from different perspectives so as to understand its full import for different sections of society.