Knowledge, women and gender in the Hadith: a feminist interpretation

This article examines gender constructs embedded within the book on ‘Knowledge’ in Bukhārī's adīth collection. This text provides a site for exploring Islamic constructions of human nature, knowledge, rationality and authority. Out of a sum total of 136 adīths contain in Bukhārī's book on...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Shaikh, Saʿdiyya (Author)
Format: Electronic/Print Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge 2004
In: Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
Year: 2004, Volume: 15, Issue: 1, Pages: 99-108
Further subjects:B Women
B gender problems
B Islam
B Genderproblematik
B Anthropology
B Frauen
Online Access: Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:This article examines gender constructs embedded within the book on ‘Knowledge’ in Bukhārī's adīth collection. This text provides a site for exploring Islamic constructions of human nature, knowledge, rationality and authority. Out of a sum total of 136 adīths contain in Bukhārī's book on ‘Knowledge’, there are eight concerning women. These have multiple levels of meaning and interpretive possibilities. Employing a feminist hermeneutic, the article examines some of the gender ideology implicit in these formative adīths for Islamic understandings of the human person. The article's twofold approach firstly engages critically with dimensions of androcentricism and patriarchy within the texts, and secondly lifts out marginalized aspects embedded within the texts that offer counter–narratives to dominant constructions of gender. The intention of this reading is to name and illustrate both the functioning patriarchy as well as alternative liberatory positions of gender within the legacy. This represents part of an Islamic feminist approach that destabilizes patriarchal gender constructs and provides alternative approaches to the tradition informed by a religious commitment to gender justice.
ISSN:0959-6410
Contains:In: Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/09596410310001631849