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The Cambridge Companion to Women and Islam

The Cambridge Companion to Women and Islam

The Cambridge Companion to Women and Islam

Masooda Bano, University of Oxford
April 2025
Available
Hardback
9781009206716
$110.00
USD
Hardback
USD
Paperback

    The Cambridge Companion to Women and Islam provides a comprehensive overview of a timely topic that encompasses the fields of Islamic feminist scholarship, anthropology, history, and sociology. Divided into three parts, it makes several key contributions. The volume offers a detailed analysis of textual debates on gender and Islam, highlighting the logic of classical reasoning and its enduring appeal, while emphasizing alternative readings proposed by Islamic feminists. It considers the agency that Muslim women exhibit in relation to their faith as reflected in women's piety movements. Moreover, the volume documents how Muslim women shape socio-political life, presenting real-world examples from across the Muslim world and diaspora communities.  Written by an international team of scholars, the Companion also explores theoretical and methodological advances in the field, providing guidance for future research. Surveying Muslim women's experiences across time and place, it also presents debates on gender norms across various genres of Islamic scholarship.

    • Provides the most comprehensive review of existing scholarship on Women and Islam
    • Offers an in-depth analysis of the theoretical and methodological approaches adopted by different disciplines
    • Draws on debates and case studies from across the Muslim world as well as the Muslim diaspora in the West, offering historical depth and examples from both Sunni and Shi'i context

    Product details

    April 2025
    Hardback
    9781009206716
    428 pages
    229 × 152 × 24 mm
    0.803kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Preface
    • Authors' Biographies
    • A Note on Foreign Language Words
    • Introduction
    • Part I. Logic of Classical Reasoning:
    • 1. Women in the Qur'an Karen Bauer
    • 2. Women's inheritance Sohail Hanif
    • 3. Veiling and restrictions on sexual liberty Katerina Nordin
    • 4. Muhammad: the ideal man Faraz Khan
    • 5. Prophet's Wives: 'the mothers of believers' Mahjabeen Dhala
    • Part II. Asserting Agency in Faith:
    • 6. Becoming Salafi Arndt Emmerich & Alyaa Ebbiary
    • 7. Joining political Islam Liv Tønnessen
    • 8. Conversions to Islam Vanessa Vroon-Najem
    • 9. Islamic feminists' approaches Nina Nurmila
    • 10. Women's Mosques in China Maria Jaschok
    • Part III. Asserting Agency in Socio-Political Life:
    • 11. Patrons of art, architecture, and the urban environment Dede Fairchild Ruggles
    • 12. Women as political leaders Shahla Haeri
    • 13. Women as social activists Nelly van Doorn-Harder
    • 14. Poets and writers Zuzanna Olszewska
    • 15. 'Feminist religiosity' as lived religion Zilka Spahic-Siljak.
      Contributors
    • Karen Bauer, Sohail Hanif, Katerina Nordin, Faraz Khan, Mahjabeen Dhala, Arndt Emmerich, Alyaa Ebbiary, Liv Tønnessen, Vanessa Vroon-Najem, Nina Nurmila, Maria Jaschok, Dede Fairchild Ruggles, Shahla Haeri, Nelly van Doorn-Harder, Zuzanna Olszewska, Zilka Spahic-Siljak

    • Editor
    • Masooda Bano , University of Oxford

      Masooda Bano is a Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford and a Senior Golding Fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford. She has held numerous prestigious research awards including European Research Council Starting and Advance grants. Bano is the author of Female Islamic Education Movements: The Re-Democratisation of Islamic Knowledge (2017) and has edited several volumes on Islamic educational institutions in Muslim-majority countries as well as in the West.