Female Religious Authority in Shi'i Islam - by Mirjam Kuenkler & Devin J Stewart (Paperback)

About the Book

Reflects on women participating in Islamic scholarly traditions from the classical period to the present

Book Synopsis

When we dissect Islamic religious authority into its various manifestations - leading prayer, preaching, issuing fatwas, transmitting hadith, judging in court, shaping the Islamic scholarly tradition - nuances emerge that question the conventional accounts of this authority that proceed from the assumption that it is male. This collection of case studies, covering the period from classical Islam to the present, and taken from across the Islamic world, allows for women's role to be compared across time and space. This allows for the formation of hypotheses regarding which conditions and developments (theological, jurisprudential, social, economic, political) enhanced or stifled female religious authority in Shi'i Islam.

Review Quotes

Female Religious Authorities in Shi'i Islam, Past and Present is the first study (not only in English but also in Middle Eastern languages) on the role of female religious authority in the Shi'i tradition from Fatima and Umm Salama to contemporary female authorities such as Amina Bint al-Huda and Nuṣrat Amīn, as well as the Twelver Shi'i legal tradition on women. Mirjam Künkler and Devin J. Stewart's book presents the forgotten history of female religious authority in Islam. It provides essential first-hand materials for researchers of Islamic religious authority, Shiʿism, and especially the role of women in the Islamic tradition.--Mohsen Kadivar, Research Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, Duke University

Female Religious Authorities in Shi'i Islam, Past and Present is the first study (not only in English but also in Middle Eastern languages) on the role of female religious authority in the Shi'i tradition from Fatima and Umm Salama to contemporary female authorities such as Amina Bint al-Huda and Nuṣrat Amīn, as well as the Twelver Shi'i legal tradition on women. Mirjam Künkler and Devin J. Stewart's book presents the forgotten history of female religious authority in Islam. It provides essential first-hand materials for researchers of Islamic religious authority, Shiʿism, and especially the role of women in the Islamic tradition.--Mohsen Kadivar, Research Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, Duke University

This masterfully edited volume brings together twelve original contributions that not only enhance our understanding of female religious authority in Shiʿi Islam across time and space but also address wider conceptual debates in Islamic Studies. It is a brilliant complement to recent growth in scholarship on female religious authority in Sunni Islam; by providing opportunity for comparative analysis, it is of equal interest to scholars and students working on Shiʿi and non-Shiʿi contexts.--Masooda Bano, Professor of Development Studies, University of Oxford

This volume is a substantial and welcome contribution to a growing body of literature on female religious authority in Islam. The introduction and individual chapters, covering a wide temporal and geographical range, address some of major unanswered questions, such as how particular contexts affect women's religious authority. This volume is of importance not just to scholars of gender or Shi'ism, but of religious authority broadly construed.--Karen Bauer, Senior Research Associate, The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London

About the Author

Mirjam Kuenkler is Senior Research Fellow at Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. Her books include Indonesia, Islam and Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2013), A Secular Age Beyond the West (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and The Rule of Law in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Power, Institutions, and Limits of Reform/i> (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2021).

Devin Stewart is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Emory University. He has published numerous journal articles, including in Islamic Law and Society, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies and Journal of Qur'anic Studies.