WOMEN AND GENDER IN THE QUR’AN. NEW PERSPECTIVES

On the brink of a new millenium, the world is searching for new directions and a moral compass by which to steer human life and strengthen community. Nowhere is this search more pressing than in the area of gender and gender-related issues. These issues cluster round the ‘Woman Question.’ It was in the latter half of nineteenth century European thought that the Woman Question was first articulated as a social and philosophical problem, and from there it spread to the rest of the world, including the Muslim world, as part of a universal movement of emancipation. The twentieth century saw its progressive politicization attended, in its last quarter, by the emergence of an interdisciplinary field specializing in ‘women’s studies.’ By the nineties, the politics of the Women Question had come to define the agenda of world politics and had inscribed itself into the core of an international morality.

Underlying this train of events, is a moral predicament that challenges reformers of every hue. As women and gender related issues have become integral to the cultural cross currents and sea changes sweeping the globe, everywhere they have also come to constitute the staple of controversial and conflicting public policies and discourses. The general context of this disarray is one of moral and cultural relativism that is buttressed by a utilitarian calculus of power and material interest, neither of which is designed to assure the well being of community, or the real interests and welfare of women. Despite a growing volume of literary, historical, empirical, and theoretical output, the scholarship that was originally conceived to represent and articulate women’s perspectives partakes in - (and even contributes to) - this general disorientation. Since women may be taken as a metaphor for life itself, the stakes of the Woman Question touch the lifeline of the entire community, and any prolonged confusion on this front threatens the moral order. Given that the Woman Question is an index to the moral fiber of a civilization, and assuming the predicament of the material culture of our times, how can we contribute to redefining the terms of a rational and purposive discourse in this field? Can we, as scholars coming from the Islamic tradition of knowledge and community, identify a normative source that can give direction and meaning to the vital areas that impinge on the Woman Question and thereby help offset the moral crisis that looms on the horizons of the ‘New World Order’?

WOMEN AND GENDER IN THE QUR’AN, the first in a series on WOMEN IN ISLAM, is designed against this background and set of concerns. As such, it raises some basic questions about society, culture and change from a gender perspective. The debate on reform in the Muslim world provides the immediate context for raising these questions and sounding the global forum.

The course takes the Qur’an for its guide in the search of a road map by which to understand and respond to the issues posed by the modern politics of the Woman Question. The challenge in this journey is to find the codes and keys that can help read this road map. A major postulate of this course is that without rethinking the requisites and methodology for approaching the Qur’an, it will not be possible to benefit from its guidance and access it as a major source for enlightenment in the general area of women’s studies and public policy. The corollary to this postulate is that an ijtihadi ethos is imperative for effectively engaging both the Qur’an and the vital social questions that undermine the moral order in a changing world.

The objective of the course is two-fold: first, is to outline an approach and develop a framework within which the Qur’an may be accessed as a source of relevant knowledge and values. Second, is to use the knowledge and insights thus gained as a source for rethinking the Woman Question. In the process we will also be laying the grounds for reconstructing the field of women’s studies from an Islamic civilizational perspective.