014030 SE Muslima Theology (2025S)

Ḥasan Maḥmūd ‘Abd al-Laṭīf Al-Shāfi‘ī considers Islamic Feminism as an "(...) intellectual movement that works to adopt the Western “hermeneutics” methodology and apply it to the Noble Qur’an and Islamic religious texts in general with complete indifference to the established principles of tafsīr (exegesis), rules of interpretation and related Prophetic clarification from the
authenticated Sunnah. It also shows how this movement turns a blind eye to the accumulated experience of Islamic civilisation, based on the claim that the Islamic heritage has been patriarchal and chauvinistic against women. It further brings to light the fact that this movement consists of a number of academics educated in Western paradigms, but almost entirely lacking in authentic training in Islamic culture and religious sciences."

The scholarly achievements within the thematic spectrum of Muslima Theology, despite their significant contributions to deconstructing ideological patterns—superimposed over centuries onto the Islamic foundational texts and their revolutionary innovations for their time—have often played only a marginal role within their own academic community. They have been pushed to the periphery of Islamic theological disciplines.

Justifications for this marginalization can be found, among other things, in the above-mentioned statement by a renowned lecturer from prestigious institutions such as the Cairo-based al-Azhar University and Dar al-Ulum, who fundamentally questions the important works of well-known theologians such as Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas, and Riffat Hassan. But what are these objections truly based on? Do they have legitimate academic grounding, or do they stem from a perceived threat by traditional scholars? If the latter is the case, this would suggest that the works of these theologians have "struck a nerve."

For this reason, we examine the debate on Muslima Theology from the perspective of jadal (controversial disputation), aiming to identify potential thematic and methodological overlaps as well as divergences. In particular, we assess the extent to which the supposed scholarly discrepancy between "academic education in Western paradigms" and "authentic training in Islamic culture and religious sciences" is actually realized—and what added value can be derived from these divergent approaches.