Women as Imams

Classical Islamic Sources and Modern Debates on Leading Prayer

Women as Imams

Classical Islamic Sources and Modern Debates on Leading Prayer

Simonetta Calderini (Author)

Online resources available

Ebook (Epub & Mobi) ₹2794.00 Ebook (PDF) ₹2794.00

₹2794.00

Buy Now

Description

There is a long and rich history of opinion centred on female prayer leadership in Islam that has occupied the minds of theologians and jurists alike. It includes outright prohibition, dislike, permissibility under certain conditions and, although rarely, unrestricted sanction, or even endorsement.

This book discusses debates drawn from scholars of the formative period of Islam who engaged with the issue of female prayer leadership. Simonetta Calderini critically analyses their arguments, puts them into their historical context, and, for the first time, tracks down how they have informed current views on female imama (prayer leadership). In presenting the variety of opinions discussed in the past by Sunni and Shi'i scholars, and some of the Sufis among them, the book uncovers how they are, at present, being used selectively, depending on modern agendas and biases. It also reviews the roles and types of authority of current women imams in diverse contexts spanning from Asia, Africa and Europe to America. The research offers readers the opportunity to gain nuanced
answers to the question of female imama today that may lead to informed discussions and to change, if not necessarily in practices then at the very least in attitudes.

This ground-breaking book interrogates the cases of women who are reported to have led prayer in the past. It then analyses the voices of current women imams, many of whom engage with those women of the past to validate their own roles in the present and so pave the way for the future.

Acknowledgements
Prologue
Introduction

PART ONE: THE PAST
Chapter 1: Prayer leadership, imams and women: defining the contexts and setting the issues
Prayer and women: purity and leadership
The imam as prayer leader

Chapter 2: Women leading women
Setting the narrative context (Umm Salama)
The Hadiths on female prayer leadership in Sunni jurisprudence
Shi'i positions on female imama of women: identity, shared issues and esoteric interpretations.

Chapter 3: Women leading men
Women as leaders of men (Umm Waraqa and Ghazala)
Legal arguments on women leading men
Ibn al-'Arabi and female imama

PART TWO: THE PRESENT

Chapter 4: Present debates and Practices
Some current cases of women imams of women and of men
Contemporary arguments and debates on female imams of men
Uses of the past in contemporary debates

Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Product details

Published	10 Dec 2020
Format	Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition	1st
Extent	248
ISBN	9780755618026
Imprint	I.B. Tauris
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Author

Simonetta Calderini

Simonetta Calderini is Reader in Islamic Studies a…

With expert attention and great expository clarity, Simonetta Calderini leads us into the articulations of one of the most debated and interesting themes of the current global discourse on the relationship between Islam and women's rights: that of female religious leadership and in particular of the imama of women.

Studi Magrebini (trans. by Bloomsbury Academic)
This book is a very interesting book indeed and the topics discussed in it are very relevant to contemporary Muslims.

The Muslim World Book Review
[Calderini] does what she set out to do in the introduction: take a sober look at the history of the uses of scripture, hadith, and the past that inform legal rulings and socio-political stances on the issue of women leading women and/or men in prayer.

Journal of Contemporary Religion
Scholars of Islam ... will find many significant insights in this book, which will be important not only to read but to discuss and extend in further publications.

HAWWA: Journal of Women of the Middle East
This book gives a rich and varied introduction to women's religious authority in the context of Islamic history. It offers a thorough examination of all aspects of consideration to modern debates: legal, cultural and doctrinal. It spans the full historical range from the Classical period of Islamic thought all the way to modernity. By doing so, it once again confirms that Islam has always been contested and diverse. This is a must read book for anyone interested in the matter of women as Imams today, whether practitioners and/or academics.

amina wadud, Visiting Researcher Starr King School for the Ministry, California, USA
Important and timely – this in-depth study makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of both the classical discussions of women acting as leaders in the Muslim community – and the modern debates. This book will hopefully have impact not only in the academic world, but in wider discussions around Islam, gender and law.

Professor Robert Gleave, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, UK