Amīnah Wadūd


Amīnah Wadūd is an African-American woman who is known for her strong engagement in Islamic Feminism. However, she was raised as a Christian by her father, a Methodist minister, and converted to Islam in 1972.(1) Amīnah Wadūd studied Islamic Studies and later became a professor of Islamic Studies. In 2005, she caused a great furor in Islamic circles when she acted as an Imām for a mixed-gender congregation in New York as the role of the Imām in Islam is traditionally reserved for men.

 

Academic Career

 

During her graduate studies of Islam, Amīnah Wadūd studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo (AUC), Cairo University and the al-Azhar University and became fluent in the language. 

 

She received her PhD from Michigan University in 1989. Subsequently, she was hired as an associate professor at the International Islamic University in Malaysia. While working in Malaysia, she co-founded Sisters In Islam (1988), a Muslim women’s organization concerned with women’s rights and gender equality. It works to promote the rights of women within an Islamic framework and to give them their basic rights of equality and human dignity as it was – in their reading - prescribed by Islam “when it was revealed 1400 years ago."(2)

 

Her first book "Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective" was published by Sisters In Islam. It has since become a key text in Islamic Feminism and is used all over the world by activists and academics alike.(3)

 

Since 1992 Wadūd has worked as an associate professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in the USA. She has also spent various periods as a visiting professor and lecturer at other universities in Europe and USA.

 

Feminist Interpretation of Qur’an

 

Amīnah Wadūd’s radical re-reading of the Qur’an from a woman’s perspective has become a widely used textbook in the field of Islamic Feminism. Her re-reading is based on the theological view that Islam came into the world in a specific historical and geographic context which has influenced the understanding of the religion. However, Wadūd holds that it is necessary to look beyond these cultural influences in order to deduce a true understanding of Islam.

 

Wadūd tackles the gap between the teachings of Islam and the reality of modern societies. She sees it as the main challenge for Muslims nowadays to grapple with this perceived antagonism by “[wrestling] the eternal system away from its contextual foundation. By ridding the religion of the influence of the societies in which the religion first took roots, it will be possible to arrive at an understanding of the basic tenets of Islam, which will then not be seen to be in opposition to modernity, but will indeed be an eternal and ever-relevant message from God to human kind.”(4)

 

Criticism of Customs in Islamic Culture

 

Wadūd has particularly focused on criticizing the customs in Islamic culture which have been used to segregate and suppress women. Amīnah Wadūd argues that these are not an inherent part of Islam but are a consequence of male domination in the patriarchal, Arab society. In other words, it is not an element of religious doctrine given by God but a socio-cultural construct.

 

In opposition to the traditional reading by Islamic scholars, which in most cases refer women to an inferior and subordinate status in relation to men(5) and sees that their doings should be largely restricted to family life, Amīnah Wadūd holds that Islam is in reality a religion that sets women free. She arrived at this understanding through extensive studies of the Qur’ān through which she found that the Qur'ānic text basically treats women as equals to men and gives them extensive rights. “In other words, I looked for a source that would most closely point me to, what was the divine intention towards women? If the divine intention was backwardness, prohibitions, narrow confines and subservience, then that was truly Islam, and I personally [did] not want to have anything to do with it. But if the true articulation was more than that, then Islam became something even more meaningful for me. So for me, the more I studied in the Qur'ān, the more liberated I became, and the more affirmed I became as a Muslim.”(6)

 

One of the main examples that Amīnah Wadūd refers to in early Islam is cĀ’ishah, one of the Prophet Muhammad’s wives. cĀ’ishah is known in Islamic history as a women who was highly respected by the early Muslims. Among other things, she gave religious advice, she functioned as an army commander and the Prophet is recorded as saying about her, that Muslims should learn from her “half of their religion.”(7) However, over the centuries her legacy was forgotten, as more traditional concepts of a patriarchal society gained influence in Islam.

 

The Necessity to Reinterpret al-Qur’an

 

To return to the original emancipating vision of Islam, Amīnah Wadūd calls for a radical reinterpretation of the entire system of Sharīcah:

 
“From my perspective, Sharīcah is thoroughly patriarchal. [...] You cannot legislate with regard to the well-being of women without women as agents of their own definition. And Sharīcah was not concerned with that construction. Sharīcah was happy to legislate for women, even to define what is the proper role of women, and to do so without women as participants. So obviously that is a major flaw. And the only way for that aspect of Sharīcah to be corrected would be a radical reform in the way in which it is thought.”(8)

 

Leading the Friday Prayer and the Response of Religious Authorities

 

Along with other Islamic feminists, Amīnah Wadūd fights for women’s complete and equal rights in religious matters in Islam including the right to lead prayers.(9)

 

On 18 March 2005, Amīnah Wadūd led a mixed-gender Muslim Friday prayer in New York. The role of Imām is traditionally reserved for men in Islam, so the event caused widespread controversy. Three mosques refused to host the prayer and an art gallery where it was planned to take place received a bomb threat. Eventually, the prayer was conducted in an Anglican Church.(10)

 

The event sparked widespread critique from Muslim authorities all over the world. President of the Azhar, Dr. Ahmad al-Tayyib stated that the prayer was invalid and that everybody who prayed behind Amīnah Wadūd needed to repeat their prayer.(11) Egypt’s Grand Imam, Shaykh Muhammad Sayyīd Tantāwī also explained that Islamic Sharīcah forbids women from praying in front of men.(12)

 

The well-respected Islamic Web site Islam online discussed the issue in an article in which they referred to several fatwás published on the website, which state that women are only allowed to lead women-only prayers, and then only when standing in line with the other women, not in front of the congregation as male Imāms do.(13) This opinion is in accordance with generally accepted views in Sharīcah though there is some discussion between the four Islamic schools of law over the details of the issue.(14)

 

One of the few positive reactions from the Arab world came from the Egyptian intellectual, Jamāl al-Banna who posed the question in the Egyptian media:

 
“Should a man who is not acquainted with the Qur’ān lead a woman who has obtained PhD in Qur’ānic studies in prayer just because he is a man?”(15)

 
His argument was further elaborated in his book called The Legality of Women Leading Prayers published in 2005.(16)

 

 

Selected publications of Amīnah Wadūd:

· Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam.
· Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective.
· “Family in Islam: Or Gender Relations by Any Other Name”, article in Islam, Reproductive Health & Women's Rights, 2000 (http://www.sistersinislam.org.my/pubs-rh-conf.htm).

 

Film about Amīnah Wadūd:

· “The Noble Struggle of Amina Wadud” by Elli Safari, 2007. (http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c699.shtml)

Sources

1 According to email correspondance with Amina Wadūd..
2 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/muslims/interviews/wadud.html
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amina_Wadud
4 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/muslims/interviews/wadud.html
5 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/muslims/interviews/wadud.html
6 http://www.sistersinislam.org.my/mission.htm
7 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/muslims/interviews/wadud.html
8 http://newint.org/features/2002/05/01/aishahs-legacy/
9 http://www.sistersinislam.org.my/mission.htm
10 This position has been formulated by Asra Q. Nomani in her “Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in Mosques”, http://www.beliefnet.com/story/168/story_16846_1.html
11 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4361931.stm
12 AWR 2005, 13, art 27.
13 AWR 2005, 18, art 18.
14 http://www.islamonline.net/Arabic/news/2005-03/11/article05.shtml
15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_as_imams
16 AWR 2005, 30, art 41.
17 AWR 2005, 30, art 41.