Windows of Faith

Abstract

Windows of Faith provides a space where Muslim women speak for themselves and challenge rigidly traditionalist voices that have often had hegemonic status in Islamic jurisprudential works regarding women. It is a volume that represents the voices of some of the most highly regarded Muslim women scholars and activists today. The book appears to cater to a primarily academic audience, and one that is familiar with the tradition of Islamic feminism. In her introduction, Gisela Webb describes the overall approach of the contributors as challenging hegemonic discourse in many circles. It challenges: elements within the Muslim and the non-Muslim imagination that define Muslim women as mute victims; western feminist patriarchy toward Muslim women; and also the Muslim cultural patriarchy that appropriates the sources of Islamic law and praxis yet, in the view of (probably all of) these women, has abandoned the essential Divine egalitarian purposes. Windows of Faith is a refreshing read, especially due to today’s urgent need to respond to the Qur’anic challenge: Do they not reflect? In the first part (Qur’anic/rheological Foundations) Amina Wadud’s piece “Alternative Qur’anic Interpretation and the Status of Muslim Women” explores neo-traditionalist and secular approaches toward alternative interpretation of the Qur’an regarding the status of women. It is interesting to examine her comment, “Being anti-Western has become a basis for legitimacy in ‘Islam’ ” against some of Maysam al-Faruqi’s comments in her chapter, which seem to dichotomize “Islamicness” with westernness in the context of gender relations. In the second chapter “Muslim Women’s Islamic Higher Learning as a Human Right,” Nimat Barazangi seeks, through an analysis of qualitative research with Muslim women, to develop an “action plan for the Muslim woman” in the postmodem era, “to regain her identification with Islam.” The need of the hour is to “reinstate woman as an educational agent, both at home and at the mosque one who herself will outline her priorities as a trustee entrusted with changing history toward social justice.” Will we see women as weil as men delivering khutaba and instituting policies in mosques ...