Qur’anic Literacy as Women’s Empowerment
Cultivating Interpretive Authority at the Women’s Mosque of America
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8206077 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tazeen M Ali (0000-0001-7425-9267, John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, Washington University in St. Louis, 1 Brookings Drive CB 1066, St. Louis, MO, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 89 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1434-1461 |
| Publication date | 2021-12-31 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jaarel/lfab098 |
| OpenAlex | W4213093103 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 27 |
This study shows how the Women’s Mosque of America, an emergent women-only mosque in Los Angeles, is a useful locus to engage contemporary global debates about Islamic authority. In these debates, scholars of religion have not yet attended to the recent appearance of women-led mosques in the West, thereby overlooking American Muslim women as legitimate mediators of the Islamic tradition. This article takes seriously American Muslim women’s interventions in authority and analyzes the Women’s Mosque of America as a discursive space that arises from the genre of American Muslim feminist exegesis, which treats the Qur’an as an essentially gender-egalitarian text. Using a lived religions approach, I draw on a close reading of its inaugural sermon and ethnographic interviews with congregants to argue that the Women’s Mosque of America challenges hegemonic understandings of Islamic authority by advocating for English translations of the Qur’an and lay Muslims’ right to interpret scripture
Empowerment · Ethnography · Hegemony · Islam · Literacy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Theology · Anthropology · Education and Islamic Studies · Gender Studies · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Society, and Development
Qur'an and Woman
God's Daughters
Authority
Sources of Authority
Reshaping Religious Authority in Contemporary Turkey
American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism
Women, Leadership, and Mosques
Islam, Feminism, and Islamic Feminism
Feminist Edges of the Qur’an
Introduction
Polyvalent, Transnational Religious Authority
Finding Mecca in America
Suburban Islam
Being Muslim
Passionately Human, No Less Divine
The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam
Sexual ethics and Islam
Engaged Surrender
He Wouldn't Know Anything
Social and Religious Change in Damascus
A Multiplicity and Diversity of Faiths
Negotiating Gendered Religious Space
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |