Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses

KAREN BAUER
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 Introduction

In his interpretation of the punishment for recalcitrant wives, the exegete,

jurist, and historian Muh ̣ammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) came up
with a novel solution for an exegetical problem. The problem, as al-
Ṭabarī saw it, was that the Qurʾān seemed to go against men’s legal rights
in marriage. The punishment for recalcitrant wives outlined in Q. 4:34 is
that the husband should admonish them, shun them in the beds, and beat
them. And if they obey you, seek not a way against them. From this
portion of the verse, it is clear that husbands have recourse to three steps,
and that each step is predicated on the wife’s continued disobedience.
What bothers al-Ṭabarī is the middle step, which I have translated as shun
them in the beds. For him, a wife’s disobedience consisted of her refusal to
have sex with her husband, so shunning this recalcitrant wife in bed is
hardly a punishment at all; in fact, such a wife wants precisely to be left
alone. This did not sit well with al-Ṭabarī, who, incidentally, never
married. He reasoned that the earliest exegetical authorities must have
missed the point in their interpretations of the verse’s words, particularly
wa’hjurūhunna, which I have translated above as ‘shun them’.1 Al-Ṭabarī

1
Abū Jaʿfar Muh ̣ammad b. Jarīr Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, eds.
Mah ̣mūd Muh ̣ammad Shākir and Ah ̣mad Muh ̣ammad Shākir (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif bi-
Masṛ 1950–60), v. 8, pp. 307–8 (at Q. 4:34). I return to this interpretation in Chapter 5. It
is also discussed at greater length in my dissertation, Karen Bauer, ‘Room for Interpret-
ation: Qurʾānic Exegesis and Gender’, PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 2008, and
mentioned in Manuela Marín, ‘Disciplining Wives: a Historical Reading of Qur’ān 4:34’,
Studia Islamica (2003): 5–40, at pp. 24–5, and Ayesha Chaudhry, Domestic Violence and
the Islamic Tradition: Ethics, Law, and the Muslim Discourse on Gender (Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2013), pp. 78–9.

1
2 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

referred to the ‘speech of the ʿArabs’, by whom he means the Bedouins, to

interpret the Qur’ān from a perspective that is closer to its original milieu
than al-Ṭabarī’s own milieu of urban Baghdad.
The first of the three meanings of this word in Arabic, he says, is that ‘a
man avoids speaking to another man, which means he repudiates and
rejects him’.2 The second meaning is the ‘profusion of words through
repetition, in the manner of a scoffer’.3 The third possible meaning is one
that had not been suggested by any earlier exegete. It is ‘tying up a camel,
i.e., its owner ties it up with the hijār, which is a rope (ḥabl) attached to its
loins and ankles’.4 For al-Ṭabarī, only the third solution fits the bill. After
cautioning husbands that they should never do this to an obedient wife,
al-Ṭabarī advises: ‘If they refuse to repent of their disobedience, then
imprison them,5 tying them to their beds, meaning in their rooms, or
chambers, in which they sleep, and in which their husbands lie with
them’.6
Sa‘diyya Shaikh, a modern feminist interpreter, is outraged by al-
Ṭabarī’s interpretation. She points out that it ‘epitomises oppressive and
abusive gender relations’.7 For her, this interpretation embodies every-
thing that is wrong with the medieval tradition, and against which she, a
modern Muslim woman, must struggle to gain equality. But modern
feminists are not the only ones to express their dismay at al-Ṭabarī’s
suggestion that husbands should tie their wives up to force them to obey.
Although al-Ṭabarī was a well-respected scholar, in this instance his own
scholarly community treated him with scorn: ‘this is a deviant interpret-
ation, and it is doubly so considering God’s words in the beds, because
there are no ropes (ribāt)̣ in bed’,8 says al-Ṭūsī (d. 459/1066), an Imāmī
Shīʿī exegete. According to the Shāfiʿī al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058), the
narrative that al-Ṭabarī used to support his view contains ‘no proof of
his interpretation rather than another’.9 The most involved rebuttal
comes from the Mālikī jurist and exegete Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 543/1148).
He is astonished, and addresses al-Ṭabarī personally through the two
centuries that separate them: ‘What a mistake, from someone who is so

2 3 4
Ibid., v. 8, p. 306 (at Q. 4:34). Ibid. Ibid., v. 8, p. 307 (at Q. 4:34).
5
Istawthaq min, according to Dozy, is ‘imprison’.
6
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, v. 8, p. 309–10 (at Q. 4:34).
7
Sa‘diyya Shaikh, ‘Exegetical violence: nushūz in Qur’ānic gender ideology’, Journal for
Islamic Studies, 17 (1997): 49–73, at p. 65.
8
Abū Jaʿfar Muh ̣ammad b. Ḥasan Al-Ṭūsī, al-Tibyān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, ed. Muʾassasat al-
Nashr al-Islāmī (Qom: Jamiʿa al-Mudarrisīn, 1992), v. 4, p. 451.
9
Abū ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muh ̣ammad Al-Māwardī, al-Nukat wa’l-ʿūyūn, ed. Sayyid b. ʿAbd
al-Maqsūr ̣ b. ʿAbd al-Rahīm (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1992), v. 1, p. 483.
 Introduction 3

learned in the Qur’ān and the behaviour of the Prophet (sunna)! I am

indeed amazed at you, [al-Ṭabarī], at the boldness with which you have
treated the Qur’ān and sunna in this interpretation!’10 These scholars do
not question al-Ṭabarī’s sources or methods; Ibn al-ʿArabī replicates his
method of picking and choosing among ḥadīths, performing linguistic
analysis, and rejecting some early views in favour of others. To find the
true meaning of the verse, Ibn al-ʿArabī reinterprets the reports of early
authorities, obscuring their differences in order to find the one ‘correct
view’, while chastising al-Ṭabarī for having missed it: ‘And it is indeed
strange that, with all of al-Ṭabarī’s deep studies into the science [of the
Qurʾān] and into the language of the Arabs, he has strayed so far from the
true interpretation! And how he deviates from the correct view!’11 Since
Ibn al-ʿArabī does not object to al-Ṭabarī’s method as such, it must be
that the substance of his interpretation shows his incorrect use of that
method. He has obtained an unacceptable result.
For these medieval interpreters, hierarchies in society and family life
were natural and fair; all of al-Ṭabarī’s medieval critics defend the gender
hierarchy and assert that men should have the right to punish their
disobedient wives. But even though they accept the premise, they some-
times struggle with the boundaries of a just hierarchy. They do not
describe a husband’s control as unbounded, unconditional, or absolute.
Al-Ṭabarī’s proposition for correcting a disobedient wife overstepped the
mark: he went beyond the meaning and intention of the verse.
The responses cited here highlight much that is important in the
genre of Qurʾānic interpretation (tafsīr): the early exegetical authorities,
in theory, trump later interpreters like al-Ṭabarī, but in turn, their views
can be reinterpreted; there is room for many conflicting views, but not
every view is tolerated; respected works by respected scholars are read
across the boundaries of legal schools; and the correct interpretation is
bounded by common practice, common understanding, and ideas of right
and wrong. Medieval interpretations of the gender hierarchy shed light
on what these scholars considered to be good, just, and correct in their
societies.
Today, the Qurʾānic gender hierarchy poses a different problem for
religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ).12 Their tradition takes hierarchy for granted.

10
Muh ̣ammad b. ʿAbd Allāh Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, ed. ʿAlī Muh ̣ammad
al-Bajawī ([Cairo]: ʿĪsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1967), v. 1, p. 418 (at Q. 4:34).
11
Ibid.
12
I use the term ʿulamāʾ to refer to religious scholars who have been trained in the
traditional sources. However, when possible, I differentiate between different types of
scholars, particularly the mufassirūn (exegetes/interpreters) and fuqahāʾ (jurists).
4 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

But for many believers, the very notion of hierarchy is outdated: modern
ideas of fairness are often based on the ideal of equality. Saʿdiyya Shaikh’s
reaction to al-Ṭabarī’s interpretation is representative of many modern
Muslims’ struggles with the hierarchical and male-orientated medieval
tradition. Squaring the medieval tradition with modern notions of fair-
ness and egalitarianism is a challenge for both conservative and reformist
ʿulamāʾ. For conservatives, the challenge is to prove that the patriarchal
system outlined in the Qurʾān’s hierarchical verses is appropriate today, in
a time when many women are able to be educated, earning, and socially
equal to men. Reformists support gender egalitarianism. For them, the
challenge is to reinterpret the plain sense of these verses, to explain away
centuries of interpretation, and to justify the correctness of their reread-
ing. Through discussions of the gender hierarchy, ʿulamāʾ today indicate
their adherence to a larger set of interpretative values, involving the role
of tradition, reinterpretation, and human reasoning.
Not all Qurʾānic verses on women are hierarchical. Some verses affirm
that believing men’s and believing women’s prayers and good deeds will
be rewarded; others name specific women as either good or bad examples
to all believers. As believers, women and men alike can either do good or
go astray. They each seem to be responsible for their own spiritual destiny
regardless of sex. Verses about the nature of the relationship between men
and women in the world, however, draw distinctions between the sexes,
and I argue that this distinction is hierarchical. Four such ‘difficult’ verses
are the core of this study. Q. 4:1 deals with the creation of the first
humans, widely understood to be Adam and Eve. Q. 2:228 and Q. 4:34
speak of the marital hierarchy: men’s ‘degree’ over women, the necessity
of wifely obedience, and the husband’s right to punish his recalcitrant
wife. Q. 2:282 refers to a woman’s testimony as half of a man’s testimony,
which raises the question of the worth of a woman’s word and of her
mental abilities.
The following pages examine the content of these verses and their context
in the Qurʾān, and trace how the ʿulamāʾ have interpreted them through
time, from the earliest interpretations to the most recent, living interpret-
ations, in the form of interviews with ʿulamāʾ from Iran and Syria.13

13
My focus on the ʿulamāʾ in the Middle East and Iran, who write in Arabic and Persian,
differentiates this book from much of the important recent work which examines the
Qurʾān and tradition from a modern feminist lens, or which incorporates the interpret-
ations of feminists writing in English. See, for instance, Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam:
Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006);
Asma Barlas, ‘Believing Women’ in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the
 Introduction 5

Through their views on women’s role in marriage, creation, and testi-

mony, the ʿulamāʾ define their stance towards tradition and reinterpret-
ation. In turn, their views on both women and interpretation are
determined not only by a textual heritage, but by their own social,
intellectual, cultural, and political circumstances. The portrayal of women
in these texts may reveal more about their (male) authors’ own attitudes
towards hierarchy than it does about women’s actual social position:
women are portrayed as the proper subjects of an idealised, just male
rulership in medieval texts, and today the Qurʾān’s verses on women have
become an axis of reformist–conservative debate over the place of trad-
itional social, political, and legal structures in the modern world. In this
book, the gender hierarchy becomes the lens through which to explore the
Qurʾān and its interpretation, the links between medieval and modern
interpretations, and the effect of social and intellectual context on the
production of religious knowledge.

medieval interpretations, modern responses

The notion of tradition is immensely important for the ʿulamāʾ, and their
grounding in tradition differentiates them from other groups who inter-
pret the Qurʾān.14 I use ‘tradition’ to refer to aspects of the medieval social
and intellectual heritage: the Qurʾān and its interpretation, ḥadīths, his-
torical narrations, law, and custom. As others have noted, religious
thinkers often reference an idea or impression of tradition, rather than a
concrete reality.15 However, although the ʿulamāʾ regularly draw on this
rhetorical notion of ‘tradition’, certain aspects of tradition are more than
just a rhetorical notion: they are traceable. ‘Tradition’ partially consists of

Qur’an (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002); Ayesha Chaudhry, Domestic Violence
and the Islamic Tradition; Aysha Hidayatullah, Feminist Edges of the Qur’an (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2014); Sa‘diyya Shaikh, ‘A Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital
Violence, and Resistance in a South African Muslim Community’, in Violence Against
Women in Contemporary World Religions: Roots and Cures, ed. Daniel Maguire and
Sa‘diyya Shaikh (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2007), Amina Wadud, Qur’an and
Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999, reprint edition).
14
Qasim Zaman takes the view that this attitude towards tradition separates the ʿulamāʾ, as
a scholarly class, from other groups in society, such as the Islamists (including the Salafīs)
and modernists, who, on the whole, have the attitude that tradition is not necessarily
needed in order to understand Islam. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Con-
temporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2002), p. 10 ff.
15
For instance, Chaudhry, Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition, p. 16.
6 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

specific interpretations that are passed from generation to generation, and

yet continually reinterpreted, appropriated, and repurposed through time
as the ʿulamāʾ engage with their intellectual legacy in changing circum-
stances. In the example given in the previous section, al-Ṭabarī records,
but then rejects, the early authorities’ views of shun them in the beds.
These early interpretations were revived and defended by his detractors,
reformulated entirely by Ibn al-ʿArabī, and ultimately judged by a modern
feminist. It is possible to trace particular elements of tradition and show
precisely how they have been adopted, adapted, or rejected through time.
Scholars of history and religious studies have long acknowledged that
the past is subject to appropriation and reinterpretation. In a context
where many Muslim countries base aspects of their laws on medieval
sources, the appropriation of tradition has important implications for
women’s rights. The most restrictive interpretation of women’s rights is
often equated with the most traditional. This popular perception is some-
times reflected in the language used to describe the range of interpret-
ations among today’s ʿulamāʾ. Ziba Mir-Hosseini describes three types of
clerics she encountered in Qom, Iran, in 1997, which she labels the
traditionalists, the neo-traditionalists, and the modernists. By ‘traditional-
ist’, she means a cleric who adheres strictly to pre-modern Islamic law.
The ‘neo-traditionalists’ adapt traditional rulings for today’s times,
accepting that a certain amount of change is inevitable in Islamic law,
and that circumstances must determine understanding. The ‘modernists’,
not bound by medieval laws, boldly advocate new interpretations of
traditional sources.16 The ‘traditionalist’ label is adopted by the ʿulamāʾ
themselves.17 Such terminology is no accident: it plays directly into the
question of authenticity. As Zaman says: ‘The ʿulamāʾ . . . are hardly
frozen in the mold of the Islamic religious tradition, but this tradition
nevertheless remains their fundamental frame of reference, the basis of
their authority and identity’.18 By adopting the label ‘traditionalist’,
conservative ʿulamāʾ are portraying themselves as the authentic, authori-
tative ʿulamāʾ, those who truly represent the past.

16
Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 18–19.
17
Ibid., p. 17: ‘The clerics I came across in Qom fell into two broad categories: adherents of
the pre-revolutionary school, now referred to as Traditional Jurisprudence (feqh-e son-
nati); and those who promoted what they referred to as Dynamic Jurisprudence (feqh-e
puya)’.
18
Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam, p. 10. He returns to this point later in the
book, for instance, p. 180.
 Introduction 7

These categories represent real differences between the interpreters.

However, the terms ‘traditionalist’ and ‘modernist’ are problematic when
used to describe modern conservative and reformist ʿulamāʾ: they can
imply that only progressive or reformist readings are modern, and that the
most conservative interpretation always emerges from the tradition. Yet
neither of these assumptions is true. For instance, when I interviewed the
Grand Muftī of Syria, Ah ̣mad Ḥassoun, in 2005, he told me that he had a
new initiative to train women to be muftīs for other women.19 A muftī is a
person qualified to issue valid opinions on the law; unlike the opinions of
a judge, a muftī’s judgment is non-binding. He presented the initiative to
train women as muftīs as a reinterpretation of tradition in women’s
favour, and a way of involving them in legal authority. It is a reinterpret-
ation of medieval law, but not in the direction of equality. According to
almost all Sunnī schools of law in the medieval period, women were
allowed to be muftīs for both women and men. The modern rereading,
which restricts women’s activities to other women, and to ‘women’s
issues’ such as menstruation and childbirth, does not grant women the
same leeway that they were granted in medieval law.
Conservatives and reformists approach tradition in different ways.20
The primary aim of conservative ʿulamāʾ is to preserve particular inter-
pretations of past laws; but they pick and choose, use modern justifica-
tions, and sometimes create entirely new laws. Reformists seek to
reinterpret past laws by rereading traditional sources. These varied
approaches to tradition lead to practical differences between conservative
and reformist interpretations on women. Conservatives explain the con-
tinued necessity of a gender hierarchy by saying that the Qurʾānic verses
indicate differences in men’s and women’s innate characteristics and
minds. To justify this today, they refer to scientific arguments about the
natural differences between men and women. Reformists argue against
the hierarchy by asserting that the Qurʾān’s hierarchical verses were
addressed to a specific time and place. Both groups claim tradition as

19
This initiative is also reported in ‘Women Want Female Muftis’, Institute for War and
Peace Reporting, Syria Issue 16 (2 September 2008), accessed online at: http://iwpr.net/
report-news/women-want-female-muftis; no author listed.
20
Suha Taji-Farouki puts this nicely: ‘Tradition is recruited either to legitimise change, or to
defend against perceived innovations and to preserve threatened values’. Suha Taji-
Farouki, ‘Introduction’, in Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an (Oxford: Oxford
University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2004), pp. 1–36, at
pp. 1–2.
8 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

their keystone, but they also use modern tools, arguments, and reasoning
to re-examine and re-interpret their tradition.
Through time, the ʿulamāʾ have formed their views, in part, as a
response to their particular intellectual context. Intellectual context
includes textual genre, an interpreter’s legal school, his personal opinion,
his forebears, and his intended audience: teachers, students, and peers. It
also includes the named sources of his interpretation, the Qurʾān and
ḥadīth. Each of these aspects of intellectual context affect interpretations
in different ways. Kecia Ali describes the importance of genre with regard
to legal texts. She points out not only that the jurists ‘use specialized
terminology and rely on a wealth of assumed knowledge’, but also that
‘the rhythms or modes of argument characteristic of legal texts shaped the
jurists’ views’.21 As in the juridical texts described by Ali, works of
interpretation have their own language, methods, and lines of argumen-
tation. Authors within each genre are involved in particular discursive
contexts.
The context of intellectual jockeying can have a profound effect on
discussions of ‘women’s status’. Often, a statement that seems integral to
women’s status is presented as a part of a wider argument, for instance,
for or against a particular school of Qurʾānic reading, law, or grammar.
Arguments that can seem vehemently to defend or deny women’s rights,
for instance their right to testify in court or to assume judgeship, may be
primarily rhetorical attempts to discredit rival schools of law or interpret-
ation. This type of argumentation leads to real differences in interpret-
ations; but it is important to investigate the intellectual context of these
arguments in order to understand their nature, particularly since ideas of
women’s rights have changed so radically in the modern age. A modern
reader might assume that certain statements or rulings – such as the ruling
that a single woman could testify to the live birth of a child – was an
argument for, or at least towards, equality. But what a modern reader
might regard as a natural corollary of a certain statement or law was by
no means natural for its medieval author: they explained that women’s
testimony was only accepted out of necessity. In the classical period and
beyond, the idea of sexual equality in the worldly realm seems to have
been absent. In the worldly realm, hierarchies were the norm, and state-
ments about women’s rights were made with the underlying presuppos-
ition of the justice of these worldly hierarchies.

21
Kecia Ali, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2010), p. 25.
 Introduction 9

structure & sources

This project started as a study of medieval Muslim interpretations of the
gender hierarchy. I was curious to know whether, in the medieval inter-
pretations of the Qurʾān, there was any notion of gender egalitarianism
akin to the feminist notions common today (the short answer is no).
To research this question, I undertook a study of the interpretation of
three Qurʾānic verses, primarily in medieval works of exegesis (tafsīr
al-Qurʾān). That project became my PhD dissertation on sixty-seven
medieval interpretations of verses on creation and marriage – now, in a
modified form, Chapters 3 and 5 of this book.22 However, as I was
working on my dissertation, it became apparent to me that these inter-
pretations were shaped by certain types of constraints.23 In order to
undertake a deeper exploration of exactly what I was reading,
I expanded the scope: this study includes the important question of
women’s testimony, goes outside the genre of tafsīr, and is based on both
medieval and modern sources, drawing on both the earliest available
Islamic source – the Qurʾān itself – and the most recent, in the form of
interviews with the ʿulamāʾ. The following pages detail the structure of
the book, as well as expanding on my use of Qurʾān, medieval and
modern written tafsīr, and interviews as source material.
This book is divided into three main parts: Testimony, Creation, and
Marriage. Testimony focuses on interpretations of Q. 2:282, call to
witness two of your men, and if there are not two men, then a man and
two women, so that if one of the two women errs, the other can remind
her. Many ʿulamāʾ, both medieval and modern, attribute the difference in
testimony between men and women to a difference in their minds. I have
chosen to open the book with this issue since the question of mental
equality is at the basis of the gender hierarchy as a whole. Creation
discusses the creation of the first woman in the Qurʾān and its interpret-
ation, centring on the interpretation of Q. 4:1, fear your Lord, who
created you from a single soul, and from it created its mate. Medieval
exegetes considered Eve, and by extension all women, to be secondary
creations. Modern interpreters view men and women as equal in their

22
Karen Bauer, ‘Room for Interpretation: Qurʾānic Exegesis and Gender’, 2008.
23
Jane Dammen McAuliffe, ‘The Genre Boundaries of Qur’ānic Commentary’, in With
Reverence for the Word: medieval scriptural exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,
ed. McAuliffe et. al., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 445–461.
10 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

created form. This fundamental transformation in references to women,

from a discourse of inherent inequality to one of inherent equality,
amounts to a change in consensus among the ʿulamāʾ. Underlying this
change in discourse is a tectonic shift in notions of correctness, ortho-
doxy, and the sources of authority. Marriage describes how the ʿulamāʾ
interpret verses that raise ethical issues around the nature of and reasons
for the marital hierarchy. The verses at the centre of this discussion are
Q. 2:228 and Q. 4:34. Q. 2:228 is about men’s and women’s rights:
women have rights like their obligations according to what is right, and
men have a degree over them. Q. 4:34, which today is one of the most
controversial verses in the Qurʾān, reads:
Men are qawwāmūn [in charge/supporters/maintainers] over women, with what
God has given the one more than the other, and with what they spend of their
wealth; so the good women are obedient, guarding for the absent with what God
has guarded, and those from whom you fear nushūz [ill conduct/disobedience],
admonish them, abandon them in the beds, and beat them; and if they obey you,
do not seek a way against them, for God is mighty, Wise.

Ethical notions are tested by a verse that orders wifely obedience regard-
less of considerations of the husband’s piety, and allows a husband to
beat his recalcitrant wife. This part of the book addresses the effect on
interpretation of ethics, social mores, and truths taken for granted.
The interpreters see each of these verses as a part of a whole picture:
the arguments they make about one verse are predicated on those they
make about the others. So, thematically, all of the parts of this book are
interrelated; but in terms of overall argument, each also builds on the
last. Testimony broadly examines the way that generic conventions
shape a discourse. Creation focuses on the development within, and
sources for, one genre, that of tafsīr. Marriage focuses on the ethics
of interpretation, describing how ethics, social mores, and culturally
taken-for-granted arguments can influence interpretation, and how as
these notions change through time, so does interpretation. Together,
these parts document a subtle shift in the authorities cited in the medi-
eval genre of tafsīr, from a genre that relied almost exclusively on the
reports of early exegetical authorities, to one that relied much more
heavily on reports attributed to the Prophet himself. Another shift in
authoritative sources occurs in the modern period, when ḥadīths are
frequently dismissed or discounted, and science is used to frame and
explain interpretations.
While it is possible to examine the trajectory of tafsīr and law on
gender without ever really engaging with the text of the Qurʾān, each part
 Introduction 11

of this book begins with a modest reading and contextualisation of the

verses in question. I focus on the Qurʾān in part because it is so central to
the ʿulamāʾ today. Non-Qurʾānic sources of authority shift through time:
the ʿulamāʾ readily admit that disciplines such as tafsīr and fiqh are a
human creation, and therefore fallible; even the collections of ḥadīth
include non-authentic material. The Qurʾān is the unchanging core.
My Qurʾānic reading is an attempt to get at the ‘plain sense’ of the
verses by comparing them with other Qurʾānic verses with similar themes,
content, and vocabulary. By ‘plain sense’ I mean the most straightforward
reading that can be gleaned from the Qurʾānic context. Taking into
account other verses of a similar theme or those that use similar language,
what was the likely meaning of this verse? Interpretations vary; However,
the ʿulamāʾ presume that verses with similar themes work together to
form a coherent whole, despite a scattered placement or piecemeal pre-
sentation. I believe that most ʿulamāʾ would disagree with postmodern
theories of interpretation that state that the text is empty, or that it gains
meaning solely through interpretation. For the ʿulamāʾ, it is not empty;
they work with words and a text that they believe has an inherent
meaning, which they must understand clearly as a part of the act of
interpretation and response. By undertaking to understand the plain sense
of the Qurʾān, I share their fundamental assumption that there is meaning
inherent in the text.
A prominent component of this study is its diachronic element: it is a
study of how interpretation develops through time. Each of the three main
parts of the book has a medieval chapter that examines the Qurʾān and
medieval interpretations of specific verses, and a modern chapter, includ-
ing written tafsīr, the oral interpretations of the ʿulamāʾ given to me in
interviews, and references to their books. By ‘medieval’, I mean, essen-
tially, the entire precolonial period, from the earliest interpretations in the
8th century through around 1800. The following paragraphs address the
issue of change and development within the medieval period and between
medieval and modern texts.
Scholars of medieval tafsīr have long acknowledged that this genre
develops through time, and that, just as it was never static, the genre was
never monolithic. There were different types of works, written for differ-
ent audiences: short, medium, and long works of varying levels of diffi-
culty.24 The genre has certain characteristics: it is inclusivist, home to

24
Walid Saleh, The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾān Commentary
of al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035) (Boston: Brill, 2004); Karen Bauer, ‘I Have Seen the People’s
12 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

more specialised branches of knowledge; it is often polyvalent,

meaning that it includes many, sometimes conflicting, interpretations;
and it is first and foremost the record of the views of certain early
authorities.25 The importance of these early authorities goes back to
the origins of tafsīr in their teaching sessions.26 The earliest exegetical
authorities are in some ways akin to the founders of legal schools, in
that almost all subsequent works refer, obliquely or overtly, to
their views.
These works were written in a way that seemed simply to record and
preserve the views of the earliest authorities and the Prophet. Yet they
not only preserved, but also modified and even erased past interpret-
ations. The term ‘stratigraphy’ has recently been applied to historical
writings in Islamic studies.27 Stratigraphy, originally the name for a
branch of geology, studies the layering of rock. When applied to histor-
ical texts, this term refers to the layering of meaning and interpretation:
one story or interpretation can be retold in many different ways, with
layers of detail added in subsequent generations. Used in this sense, the
term stratigraphy can describe the continual accretion of meanings in
the genre of tafsīr. Through time, interpretations built up in layers, and
the very process of building up could also impose new meanings on the
text and on earlier interpretations. This is how Ibn al-ʿArabī treated the
views of the early authorities in the example cited at the beginning of
this Introduction. Rather than acknowledging that the views of the
earliest authorities were incompatible, he reinterpreted disagreement so
that it became agreement, thus imposing new meanings on the earliest
authorities’ words.

Antipathy to this Knowledge: The Muslim Exegete and His Audience 5th/11th–7th/13th
Centuries’, in The Islamic Scholarly Tradition: Studies in History, Law, and Thought in
Honor of Michael Allan Cook, ed. Ahmed, Sadeghi, and Bonner (Leiden: Brill, 2011),
pp. 293–314, especially pp. 295–9.
25
C. H. M. Versteegh, Arabic Grammar and Qurʾānic Exegesis in Early Islam (Leiden:
Brill, 1993), p. 61 and pp. 63–95; Norman Calder, ‘Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr:
Problems in the Description of a Genre, Illustrated with Reference to the Story of
Abraham’, in Hawting and Shareef, Approaches to the Qur’ān (New York: Routledge,
1993), pp. 101–38.
26
Claude Gilliot, ‘A Schoolmaster, Storyteller, Exegete and Warrior at Work in Khurāsan:
al-Ḍah ̣h ̣āk b. Muzāh ̣im al-Hilālī (d. 106/724)’, in Aims, Methods and Contexts of
Qur’anic Exegesis (2nd/8th–9th/15th c.), ed. Karen Bauer (Oxford: Oxford University
Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2013), pp. 311–92.
27
Sarah Bowen Savant, The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and
Conversion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 17.
 Introduction 13

The accretion of interpretation in the genre of tafsīr, and its repur-

posing, is complicated by considerations both practical and stylistic. We
know that patterns of citation/accretion were fragmentary. When
writing a work of tafsīr, authors would selectively pick and choose
from previous works, usually without crediting the original author.
But we know very little about the practical mechanisms that enabled
such picking, choosing, and selective accretion of tradition. Walid Saleh
has claimed that the whole tradition is available to exegetes at any
moment; thus picking and choosing is up to the exegete alone.28 How-
ever, the idea of the availability of the entire tradition discounts the way
that book production, distribution, and preservation worked in the
medieval Islamic world. Not all books were widely distributed or kept
intact. In one of the only library catalogues that exist for the medieval
Islamic world, many of the works of tafsīr are partial.29 Fragmentary
patterns of citation might reflect not only an author’s choice, but also
practical considerations of which works were available to him and in
what state.
While it is important to explore the variations in interpretation
specific to particular genres or authors, it is no less important to attempt
to understand the wider context of these variations, and to investigate
the likely presuppositions of their authors. That the gender hierarchy
was considered natural in the medieval period is apparent in legal
rulings, such as that for the blood-money payment in the case of killing:
100 camels for men, 50 for women. It was also widespread in ḥadīths,
one of which asserts that woman was created ‘crooked’, from a rib of
Adam, while another claims that women are deficient in rationality
and religion.30 Men in these ḥadīths are the model: they are complete
humans, while women are defective. These ḥadīths are often reinter-
preted today; but in the medieval period, they were taken at face value.
In their view of women as unequal, subservient, and deficient, medieval
Muslim interpreters are on common ground with medieval interpreters
from other world religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity.
Medieval Jewish interpretations of the Biblical verse Genesis 3:16,
to the woman he said, ‘I will make your pains in childbirth severe;
with labour you will give birth to children, and your desire shall be for
your husband, and he shall rule over thee’, are similar to Medieval

28
Walid Saleh, Formation, pp. 14–15.
29
See Bauer, ‘I Have Seen the People’s Antipathy to this Knowledge’.
30
These ḥadīths are discussed in further depth, with source citations, in Chapters 1 and 3.
14 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

Islamic interpretations of Q. 4:34.31 Although I describe important

differences in opinions between medieval interpreters, their interpret-
ations are always bounded by certain common presuppositions.
Theoretically, ‘modern’ interpretations could date from around 1850
onwards. Muslim intellectuals of the 19th century were deeply engaged in
larger societal debates about women’s place in society, the relationship
between science and revelation, religion as an expression of cultural
values, and the relationship between ‘the West’ and ‘the East’, which are
all central themes for the contemporary ʿulamāʾ in this study. But within
the genre of tafsīr, the first ‘modern’ work, meaning one that deals with
these themes at length, and in a new way, is the Tafsīr al-Manār of the
Egyptian Muhammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905) and his student Rashīd Rid ̣ā
(d. 1935). They were deeply influenced by the colonial encounter and
sought to engage with the modern ideas and ideals that were matters of
widespread discussion in their day. In the words of J. J. G. Jansen, ‘Before
Abduh the interpretation of the Koran was mainly an academic affair.
Commentaries were written by scholars for other scholars . . . to this kind
of scholarly exegesis Abduh objected on principle’.32 ʿAbduh intended his
commentary for a wider public, as a solution to the problems of the day.33
It is these modern aims, ideals, and ways of writing that form a break
from the medieval texts, which nevertheless exert a strong influence on
most modern interpretations.
In the modern period the audience for, and methods used in, these
works have changed. With the advent of mass literacy, many more people
are reading works of tafsīr than in the past. Whereas in the medieval
period such works might have been used as scholarly references by
preachers, and then summarised and condensed into arguments suitable
for a mass audience, today some of the most prominent and popular
works of tafsīr (such as Tafsīr al-Manār) are themselves collected
sermons. The boom in audience has resulted in a different way of writing.
No longer is polyvalence common: now, the norm is to present one

31
Ruth Roded, ‘Jews and Muslims [Re]Define Gender Relations in their Sacred Books:
yimshol and qawwamun’, in Muslim-Jewish Relations in Past and Present:
A Kaleidoscopic View, eds. Camilla Adang and Josef (Yousef) Meri, Studies on the
Children of Abraham Series (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming), and ‘Jewish and Islamic Reli-
gious Feminist Exegesis of Their Sacred Books: Adam, Woman and Gender’ (forthcom-
ing). Muslim interpreters also refer to the pain of childbirth as a punishment for women.
32
J. J. G. Jansen, The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1974),
pp. 18–19.
33
Ibid., p. 19.
 Introduction 15

unified conclusion, an argument, rather than a number of possibilities.

Following from the work of ʿAbduh, there is also a strong feeling that
modern works must address pressing social concerns. Concurrently,
women’s rights have become a pressing social concern in a way that they
were not in the medieval period.
These modern ways of writing and thinking have a striking effect on
interpreters’ descriptions of the gender hierarchy. Today’s ʿulamāʾ have,
on the whole, jettisoned all talk of women’s inferiority. The language of
equality pervades texts from the modern period, even when the ʿulamāʾ
do not advocate legal equality between the sexes. Another common
feature of modern interpretation is the recourse to science. An example
of these trends is to be found in modern interpretations of women’s
testimony. Some modern conservative interpreters assert that the medi-
eval rulings on women’s testimony should remain today. But rather than
justifying these rulings by saying that women are deficient in rationality,
as did medieval interpreters, they claim that women and men can reason
equally well, but that modern science proves that women and men have
different mental strengths. As opposed to this approach, modern reform-
ists assert that medieval rulings on women’s testimony should be over-
turned, and that scientific proof is on their side. They claim that science
proves that men’s and women’s minds are equal and that they should
have equal testimony in all or most cases, and that this equality is deeply
embedded in the spirit of the Qurʾānic verse, if not in its wording.
My analysis of the gender hierarchy shows not only development, but
important elements of continuity between medieval and modern works in
the genre. As I have mentioned, the pre-modern genre of tafsīr was a
scholarly venture: works were often written for specific levels of scholar,
or for scholars with particular interests or sets of interests. Writing a tafsīr
was one way for an author to prove his scholarly credentials. In the
modern period, although they address a wider audience, authors still
write works of tafsīr to prove their scholarly credentials. Like pre-modern
works, modern works of tafsīr relate directly to their precursors within
the genre, citing or quoting previous works, with or without attribution.
While modern authors have different aims for their works, and this is
expressed in their methods and their engagement with various types of
sources, they nevertheless still choose to write this type of work to
demonstrate their familiarity with the tradition. I thus argue that the
genre of tafsīr in the modern period is one that is both conservative and
circumscribed. Modern works of tafsīr do not represent the whole range
of modern interpretations of the Qurʾān.
16 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

The circumscribed nature of the genre of tafsīr was one of the main
reasons that I decided to incorporate interviews into my source pool,
which led to my travels to Syria (2004 and 2005) and Iran (2011). My
transcription of the Iran interviews ran past 150 pages; these pages were
to become the core of the modern chapters in this book. By interviewing
the ʿulamāʾ, I was able to get beyond the constraints of tafsīr texts, while
still remaining within the bounds of tradition.
When I spent three months in Syria in 2004, I was in graduate school,
and this project was in its formative stages. I was fortunate to be able to
conduct interviews with some of Syria’s leading clerics at the time:
Member of Parliament Muh ̣ammad al-Ḥabash, Grand Muftī Ah ̣mad
Ḥassoun, and popular preacher Saʿīd Ramad ̣ān al-Būtī.̣ Unfortunately,
I conducted these interviews using a tape recorder with poor sound
quality, and my transcriptions were of only limited use to me years later
while writing the final iteration of this project. But the experience of being
in Damascus and hearing living, interactive interpretations had an indel-
ible effect on my work and thought.
While there, I attended the mosque lessons of Ḥannān al-Lah ̣h ̣ām, who
preached to other women in the basement of a mosque in Damascus. She
had just published a work of tafsīr of Surat al-Baqara (the second chapter
of the Qurʾān), which she taught in her lessons. But far from the dry,
medieval-sounding interpretations that were presented in the book, her
lessons were interactive question-and-answer sessions with a group of
lively, engaged women. She brought the text to life, elaborating on the
written interpretation and speaking to the current concerns of her audi-
ence. Suddenly, through her, I gained some insight into Islamic scholarly
circles of learning, and the world beyond the textual tradition. Even in
mosque sessions with less interactive methods, such as those of Hudā al-
Ḥabash at the Zahra mosque, the audience was deeply engaged as the
teacher made the text relevant to their daily lives. It was my Syrian
experience that led me to pursue a trip to Iran to complete the research
for this book.
When I went to Iran in 2011, I learned that the very concerns that
motivated my work were also central for some of the ʿulamāʾ. Like me,
they meditated on the relationship between the text and its context,
between medieval interpretations and the modern world, and between
culture and interpretation. In interviews, I was thus able to ask not only
about an interpreter’s view, but also about why he or she took that view.
Although my interview subjects often gave me books that they had
written, the interviews went beyond their written words. For instance,
 Introduction 17

in her book on women’s rights, Dr Fariba ʿAlasvand barely touched on

the issue of women’s testimony. But in our interview, she explained why
she believes that women’s and men’s testimony should be counted differ-
ently in most cases, and also explained the scientific theories upon which
she draws as proof.
As a non-Muslim trained in the ‘orientalist’ tradition, I embodied a
particular type of audience for my interview subjects. The trope of West
versus East looms large in modern texts and in my interviews on the issue
of women’s rights and the marital hierarchy. For some of the ʿulamāʾ,
discussing these verses with me was not just arguing an academic point: it
was defending their religious culture against my secular one. In this
conservative-minded dynamic, a defence of the status of women in the
family and society is a synecdoche for the defence of traditional Eastern
cultural values against Western incursion. For some conservative clerics,
feminism is seen as the hallmark of the West; to argue for a form of
patriarchy is to argue for cultural authenticity. Yet my readings and
interviews revealed few simplistic arguments against equality. Instead,
almost all modern interpreters embrace some aspects of equality while
rejecting others. And while many ʿulamāʾ defend patriarchal systems in
various forms, some argue against them: rather than asserting that the
patriarchal model is the only culturally authentic model, reformists use
narratives from the past and present to argue for gender equality.34 To
take one example, Grand Ayatollah Yusuf Saanei asserted that Q. 4:34
describes particular social circumstances: for the Qurʾān’s original audi-
ence, husbands were in charge of wives. Today, not all marriages conform
to the description in the Qurʾān; according to him, marriage does not have
to be hierarchical.35
The interviews in Iran provided a valuable counterpoint to my Syrian
interviews, by highlighting broad elements of similarity and difference
between modern Sunnī and Imāmī Shīʿī interpreters. One area of similar-
ity was the substance and nature of conservative interpretations. Often,
Sunnī and Imāmī Shīʿī conservatives used the same or very similar argu-
ments. However, Sunnīs and Shīʿīs approach their sources of interpret-
ation differently, particularly ḥadīths. While Sunnī interpreters were likely
to preserve ḥadīths by explaining, justifying, or reinterpreting them, Shīʿīs

34
It is well recognised that historical contextualisation is the main method by which
reformists reinterpret the Qurʾān. See, for instance, Manuela Marín, ‘Disciplining Wives:
A Historical Reading of Qur’ān 4:34’, p.7.
35
Grand Ayatollah Saanei’s views on Q. 4:34 are described in Chapter 6.
18 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

were more likely to dismiss ḥadīths irrespective of whether they had

been transmitted from Sunnī or Shīʿī authorities. Shīʿī interpreters on the
whole accepted the use of human reason (ʿaql) as a means of critiquing
ḥadīths and deriving the law, and some accepted human reason as a
basis for the law and interpretation. Thus, the sources and methods of
Sunnīs and Shīʿīs differ even when the substance of their interpreta-
tions is quite similar. In writing about my interviews, I highlight these
methods, particularly the interpreters’ own views of the role of tradition
versus that of human intellect. In this way, the subject of women sheds
light on the approaches that the ʿulamāʾ take to Qurʾānic interpretation
as a whole.
There are a number of caveats on the conclusions to be drawn from
interviews. Like texts, interviews are intended for a particular audience;
and, whether as a representative of the West, as an academic, as a non-
Muslim, or as a woman, my presence shaped the answers I was given.
There are limits on what is presented in interviews, just as in texts. In the
words of Mir-Hosseini, about her own interviews: ‘As with any other
debate in the Islamic Republic in the 1990s, there were limits that cannot
be transgressed, and I was never sure how far I could go’.36 In both Iran
and Syria, I could very much relate to her feeling of unspoken limits and
boundaries on what could, and could not, be expressed. Because of my
focus on the Iranian interviews, the modern chapters are slanted towards
the Shīʿī perspective. I have used my interviews and textual studies to
draw comparisons between the views of Sunnī and Shīʿī ʿulamāʾ, but such
comparative work in gender studies is still in its infancy.
Finally, it is possible to read too much into the ‘conservative’ and
‘reformist’ labels I have chosen for the ʿulamāʾ. There is undoubtedly a
relationship between politics and interpretation in some sense, but an
individual’s perspective on gender does not necessarily correlate with his
political views.37 In this book, the labels ‘conservative’, ‘neo-traditional-
ist’, and ‘reformist’ point to the substance of an ʿālim’s interpretation on
gender issues, and are not intended to convey political affiliation. Regard-
less of these caveats, the interviews shed light not only on how the ʿulamāʾ
respond to the concerns of a secular outsider, but also on the limits of the
textual sources which are commonly the sole basis of analysis in the field
of Qurʾānic studies.

36
Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender, p. 19; she elaborates on the implications of this on
pp. 277–8.
37
Ibid., p. 276.
 Introduction 19

theoretical and practical perspectives on the

interpretation of the qurʾān
This book is, in part, a meditation on the nature of Qurʾānic interpret-
ation. To conclude the Introduction, I now describe some of the theoret-
ical considerations that bind the interpreters studied here.
Gadamer’s ideas about historical consciousness are relevant to the
study of Islamic interpretation, because he speaks about the relationship
between the historian and the past; seemingly like the Muslim interpreter
of the Qurʾān, the historian seeks to obliterate self and to return to a past
time. But, according to Gadamer, such obliteration is impossible. ‘Even in
those masterworks of historical scholarship that seem to be the very
consummation of the extinguishing of the individual’, he says, ‘it is still
an unquestioned principle of our scientific experience that we can classify
these works with unfailing accuracy in terms of the political tendencies of
the time in which they were written’.38 The interpreter of the Qurʾān
presents ‘truth’ by calling forth past witnesses, as does Gadamer’s histor-
ian. In this case, those witnesses include the Prophet’s ḥadīths, the inter-
pretations of his Companions, grammatical analysis, and the
interpretation of past exegetes. But like Gadamer’s examples of historical
works, works of Qurʾānic interpretation are rooted in particular times.
The present always shapes the interpretation of the past. According
to Gadamer, it is our present concerns and hopes that make the past real
for us.39
My analysis is predicated on the idea that context influences interpret-
ation. But it was not always taken for granted that context must have an
influence on the interpretive venture, and that therefore interpretation is
time-bound and changeable; many of the interpreters in this study attempt
to abide by theories of interpretation developed in the classical period by
al-Ṭabarī and others. In classical interpretive theory, the ultimate sources
of Qurʾānic commentaries lie in the past and are timeless: the language of
the Qurʾān itself, the ḥadīths of the Prophet and his Companions. These
timeless sources in some ways imply an essentially stagnant and unchan-
ging venture of interpretation. A basic template of the idealised sources of

38
Hans-Georg Gadamer, ‘The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem’, in Hermeneut-
ical Inquiry, Vol. 1: The Interpretation of Texts, by David E. Klemm, the American
Academy of Religion: Studies in Religion, No. 43 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1986),
pp. 179–91, at p. 181.
39
As he says, ‘History is only present to us in light of our futurity’ (Ibid., p. 183).
20 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

Qur ā n
Prophet’s
hadīths
.

Precedent/
legal
school

tafsīr

figure i.1: A Simple (or Simplistic) Template for the Theoretical Sources of
Interpretation

Qurʾānic commentary might look like Figure I.1, which includes the
words of the Qurʾān, ḥadīths on the authority of the Prophet, his Com-
panions, and their Followers, and the interpreter’s own legal school and
precedent from exegetical authorities.
Figure I.1 is an idealisation, and in this depiction, the theoretical
sources of interpretation remain constant. Exegetes through time have
recognised that these sources are not unmediated, and they differentiate
their own contribution by describing their methods of interpretation; but
even with methodological development, these theoretical sources remain
unchanging. The aim of the exegete, as in the theory of Gadamer, is the
extinction of the individual self, and the return to a mythologised
past time.
The overall development of theories of Qurʾānic interpretation has not
been the subject of a sustained study; but it is likely that, like interpret-
ations themselves, the theory of interpretation depicted in Figure I.1
developed through time and emerged in conversation with alternate and
competing theories.40 I base this observation primarily on analogy with

40
Cf Gilliot, ‘The Beginnings of Qurʾānic Exegesis’, in Andrew Rippin, ed., The Qurʾān:
Formative Interpretation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), pp. 1–27.
 Introduction 21

recent studies of legal theory (usūl ̣ al-fiqh). Though the genres of exegesis
(tafsīr) and law (fiqh) are separate, it is not unreasonable to suppose that
legal and exegetical theories developed in similar ways, or that their
authors share certain concerns. David Vishanoff has shown that what
came to be accepted as classical Sunnī legal theory was not inevitable and
that it evolved after the jurist al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820).41 In legal theory, the
Sunnī approach emerged in debates with the Muʿtazilī and Shīʿī
approaches. One key point of difference between the Sunnī approach
and the Imāmī Shīʿī approach (as each was eventually formulated) lies
in the acceptance or rejection of the use of human reasoning in the
derivation of law. It is worth saying a few words about these differences
in legal theory, because the tension between transmitted text (naql) and
human reasoning (ʿaql) which is central to the discussion of Islamic law
also affects the interpretation of the Qurʾān, and indeed this tension
endures throughout the history of interpretation. This division came to
be described by the interpreters themselves as tafsīr bi’l-maʾthūr and tafsīr
bi’l raʾy (exegesis according to transmission, and exegesis according to
opinion).
This is not the place to enter into an in-depth discussion of usūl ̣ al-fiqh.
But broadly speaking, after an initial period of development, most Sunnīs
came to accept certain sources of law and interpretation, including
ḥadīths and analogy.42 In general, Sunnīs do not accept the use of human
reasoning (ʿaql) as an independent source of law, although some Ḥanafīs,
particularly those under the influence of the rationalist Muʿtazilī school of
thought, accept istiḥsān, which has been translated as ‘subjective
reasoning’.43 In distinction to the majority of Sunnīs, Imāmī Shīʿī ʿulamāʾ
accepted human reasoning as a source of law.
Gleave writes about the emergence of the proof of rationality (dalīl al-
ʿaql) as a source of Shīʿī law in the medieval period. He describes how the
Muʿtazilīs held it as a ‘central tenet’ that ‘human reason, without the aid
of revelation from God, could discover certain truths’.44 This Muʿtazilī

41
David R. Vishanoff, The Formation of Islamic Hermeneutics: How Sunni Legal Theorists
Imagined a Revealed Law (New Haven, CT: The American Oriental Society, 2011).
42
See, for instance, Shāfiʿī’s Epistle on Legal Theory, the chapter on Subjective Reasoning,
in which he says ‘opinions given on the basis of anything other than a report or analogical
reasoning are impermissible’, al-Shāfiʿī, Epistle on Legal Theory, ed. and trans. Joseph
Lowry (New York: New York University Press, 2013), p. 363.
43
Ibid.
44
Robert Gleave, Inevitable Doubt: Two Theories of Shīʿī Jurisprudence (Leiden: Brill,
2000), p. 87.
22 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

hadīths
. Precedent/School

Qur ān Human Reason

( aql)

tafsīr

figure i.2: The Usūlī

̣ Approach in a Nutshell

doctrine was passed on to some Sunnī schools and most Shīʿa, particu-
larly in the Buyid period (334/945–447/1055). Thus, ‘those Shīʿa who
held that morally (or legally) relevant information could be derived from
reason were compelled to add ʿaql (reason) to naql (transmitted revela-
tory texts) as a means of obtaining knowledge’.45 After the introduction
of Muʿtazilite doctrine into Shīʿī thought, this doctrine developed through
time, culminating in the work of ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325). He
overtly accepted the use of ijtihād (independent reasoning by a qualified
jurist), rather than just reliance on the words of the Imāms.46 The jurists
who held the doctrine of acceptance of human reasoning in some form
were called Usūlīs.
̣ The Usūlị̄ approach to the sources of law might be
depicted in a simple diagram such as Figure I.2.
Akhbārism, which developed as a response to Usūlī ̣ doctrine, is a
school of thought more akin to the mainstream Sunnī model. For Akh-
bārīs, human reason is misleading: transmitted texts are necessary for
humans to understand which actions are good and evil.47 This doctrine
may have developed in the 17th century with the work of Muh ̣ammad
Amīn Astarābādī (d. 1036/1627), who explicitly rejected the use of
ijtihād, or it may have developed considerably before then, closer to the
time of ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī.48 In a nutshell, Usūlīs
̣ accept the use of ʿaql as a
means of deriving the law, and even as a source of law; Akhbārīs, on the
whole, reject it.

45 46 47 48
Ibid. Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., chart on p. 185. Ibid., p. 6.
 Introduction 23

The medieval Usūlī–Akhbārī

̣ attitudes towards the use of human
reason in interpretation roughly correlate with the modern reformist–
conservative groupings I have described. Many reformists explicitly
accept the use of their own reason in deriving the law, or even as a basis
for the law. Many conservatives follow Akhbārī methods, particularly
insofar as these methods correlate with the Sunnī sources of interpretation
outlined herein. In the latter ideology, transmitted texts take priority.
However, just as there is some crossover in reformist and conservative
methods and interpretations, there is also crossover between reason and
revelation as sources of law or interpretation. Among Usūlīs,
̣ the areas in
which knowledge could be obtained through ʿaql were disputed, particu-
larly around the question of whether reason could determine ‘legally
relevant knowledge’,49 or in other words, the type of knowledge on which
laws are based. Usūlī
̣ doctrine holds that human rationality can determine
good and evil independently of the Lawgiver, but that there is a correl-
ation between the assessment of human rationality and God’s law.50
Therefore, for the Usūlīṣ (and some Akhbārīs), human reason has the
ability to recognise good and evil independently of the Lawgiver, but most
Usūlīs
̣ also say that rationality agrees with God’s law. Modern reformists
who accept the use of reason, like pre-modern Usūlīs,
̣ generally assert that
their reasoning leads them to the same conclusions as those in the revealed
texts. Some, however, allow that human reason can go beyond the
transmitted text or the Prophet’s example.
But does theory matter? As Vishanoff says, ‘The discipline of legal
hermeneutics . . . represents not a record of some interpretive process
whereby Islamic law was actually brought into being, but a choice to
imagine Islamic law in a certain way’.51 It is worth investigating whether
theory says more about the process of imagining ideal sources than it does
about the realities of the interpretative process.
Sadeghi’s study of the relationship of law to the binding texts proposes
a model in which there are three main sources for law: canon (by which he
means Qurʾān and sunna), received law, and the jurist’s contemporary
conditions and values; all of these are moderated by the individual jurist’s
hermeneutical-methodological approach.52 Thus, he argues, the text of

49
Ibid., p. 183–4.
50
Ibid., see the chart on p. 185, which has been sourced from Muz ̣affar Rid ̣ā, Usūl
̣ al-fiqh.
51
Vishanoff, The Formation of Islamic Hermeneutics, p. 258.
52
Behnam Sadeghi, The Logic of Law Making in Islam: Women and Prayer in the Legal
Tradition (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 1–39, especially at
p. 12 and p. 21.
24 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

Qur ān

Rational Prophet's hadīths

.
proofs/science sunna

Genre constraints/
hermeneutical approach Early authorities/
legal school

Common
sense/custom/ethics Individual reasoning

figure i.3: A Basic Template of Early Interpretation

Qurʾān and ḥadīths do not determine law, which is usually determined by

received law; but even received law is moderated by other factors.53
Sadeghi’s findings are in some ways analogous to what I have found to
be the mechanisms of interpretation in tafsīr. Received interpretation is
highly important, but it is affected by the exegete’s hermeneutical
approach, conditions, values, and individual reasoning.
It may be impossible to account for everything that influences
interpretation, but I would propose a general model that accounts for
the fluidity of the venture of interpretation. In Figure I.3, the Qurʾān,
ḥadīth, and legal school/precedent have been joined by an exegete’s
individual reasoning, genre constraints, social custom/common sense/eth-
ical considerations, and recourse to rational or scientific proofs. In the
model depicted in Figure I.3, the mechanism of interpretation is not fixed
and static: it is dependent on many factors. An interpreter’s theoretical
approach matters, but it is not the only determinant of interpretation.
Figure I.3 depicts a basic template of the actual source of interpretation
for the early works of interpretation, including al-Ṭabarī and those who
preceded him.
The relative weight given to each factor in this basic template depends
on the individual; yet, as I show in the following chapters, there are broad
trends in the use of these sources through time. Theoretically, the sources
of exegesis are static and rest ultimately on the sayings of the Prophet; but

53
Ibid., p. 5.
 Introduction 25

in practice, the earliest interpreters put the greatest weight on early

exegetical authorities, rather than on sayings that they trace directly to
the Prophet. These early authorities are often Successors (those who
transmitted on the authority of Companions) who had some connection
to the Companion Ibn ʿAbbās. Through time, their interpretations still
underlie much of what is said in the genre of exegesis, but in the classical
period sayings attributed directly to the Prophet are cited much more
frequently. Everything else stays relatively constant: each interpreter
incorporates these elements as he sees fit. In the modern period, particu-
larly among the Shīʿa, much greater weight is given to rational and
scientific proofs. Basic templates for the classical and modern approaches
are depicted in Figures I.4 and I.5. Notably, gender has been left out of

Qur ān

Rational Prophet's hadīths

.
proofs/science sunna

Genre constraints/ Early

hermeneutical approach authorities/
legal school

Common
sense/custom/ethics Individual reasoning

figure i.4: Basic Template of Classical Interpretation

Qur ān

Rational Prophet's hadīths

.
proofs/science sunna

Genre constraints/
hermeneutical approach
Early authorities/
legal school

Common
sense/custom/ethics Individual reasoning

figure i.5: Basic Template of Modern Interpretation

26 Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān

these basic templates; but it should be considered as a part of cultural

context: in the genre of tafsīr, the authority to interpret has until very
recently been held by men, and only those men educated in a specific
system as mufassirūn. Muslim feminists such as Amina Wadud have
pointed out that medieval ʿulamāʾ took for granted the patriarchal mores
of their societies, and that they read these into the Qurʾān.
I have called Figures I.3, I.4, and I.5 ‘basic templates’, rather than
‘models’ because a model can predict an outcome, whereas these figures
represent a much more fluid system: certain elements are likely to take
precedence, but much is left to the preferences of the individual author.
What do these fluid templates mean for the Qurʾān? Can we say, like
Stanley Rosen, that ‘there is no difference between the written lines of the
text and the blank spaces between them’?54 Previously, I referred to
Gadamer’s notion that social context must affect interpretation. The
effect of context goes right back to the origins of the genre of tafsīr.
Versteegh argues that the genre of tafsīr started in oral teaching sessions,
in which the expert helped the believers apply the Qurʾānic dictates to
their own daily lives.55 In this way, the interpreters sought to influence
social practice. But the question is the extent to which it worked the
other way around: how did social practice affect interpretation? The
interpreters studied here sometimes use social arguments to justify their
interpretations – such as the assertion of al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1143)
that it is ethical to expect wives to do the housework, because it is the
common practice. I argue that social conventions can and do shape
exegetes’ notions of right and wrong; moreover, today the gender hier-
archy has become an issue bound up with both politics and cultural
identity, and it is almost impossible not to see this as having some effect
on its interpretation.
Intellectual context is no less important. Early exegetical authorities
and subsequent generations of interpreters within the genre are the inter-
locutors in an ongoing conversation about the true meaning of these
verses, and through time the ʿulamāʾ have formed their interpretations
as a part of this conversation. Occasionally, as in the case of Ibn al-
ʿArabī’s words to al-Ṭabarī, they address their long-deceased colleagues
directly, personally, as though through scholarly attentiveness and close
reading they had become bosom friends. The interpretive stance of the
ʿulamāʾ is always taken against the backdrop of the medieval textual

54
Stanley Rosen, Hermeneutics as Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 161.
55
Versteegh, Arabic Grammar, pp. 63 ff.
 Introduction 27

tradition. As will become obvious in the following pages, understanding

the medieval heritage is necessary for understanding the modern religious
discourse of women’s rights and roles.
Ultimately, because the ʿulamāʾ commonly agree on a certain ‘plain
sense’ reading of the Qurʾān, to some extent the Qurʾān does determine its
own interpretation. The ʿulamāʾ are bound by historical antecedents and
the plain sense meaning up to a certain point of uncomfortability, some-
times resolving this by saying that the rulings do not seem fair, but must
be obeyed.56 But when the plain sense of the Qurʾān violates the inter-
preters’ deeply held beliefs, they sometimes use hermeneutical strategies to
interpret the Qurʾān away. There is always interplay between the words of
the Qurʾān and the social and intellectual contexts of interpretation. This
interplay is not straightforward, particularly when it comes to the ques-
tion of ḥadīths mitigating the words of the Qurʾān, or to the question of
determining what the Qurʾān means versus what it says. For the very
nature of ḥadīths as authoritative sources changed through time, and
meaning is a slippery concept, bound up not only with what the Qurʾān
says, but what it intends, the discovery of which is at the heart of the
venture of interpretation.

56
In speaking of the exegetes’ ‘uncomfortability’, I am indebted to Behnam Sadeghi, ‘The
Structure of Reasoning in Post-Formative Islamic Jurisprudence (Case Studies in Ḥanafī
Laws on Women and Prayer)’, PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 2006.