The Revolution Will Be Feminist—or It Won’t Be A Revolution

It is late in the evening after iftar, and Sarah Marsso, Musawah’s Knowledge Building Coordinator, is sitting in Dr Omaima Abou-Bakr’s living room in Cairo, Egypt. They are joined by another Islamic feminist scholar, Dr. Mulki Al-Sharmani. One window is open to let the breeze in, and the sounds of children playing in the streets outside can be heard floating in. 

This Musawah podcast is a modest initiative about the different layers of meaning and evolving relationships with the Qur’anic text. 

The recording is informal. You can hear different levels of sound and background noise. We believe that these small imperfections convey a fair picture of any feminist enterprise--it’s real, sincere and part of deconstructing the norms and boundaries. We hope you will enjoy the podcast, share it and give us your feedback!

This podcast is also featured on Musawah's blog at http://www.musawah.org/blog/reading-the-quran-for-ourselves-a-feminist-journey. 

Released: 3 June 2019 
Recorded: 19 May 2019 in Cairo, Egypt. 
Music: Introduction and end - Oud Dance by Doug Maxwell, Royalty Free Music
‘Arafto al hawa by Oum Kalthoum, based on Rabi'a al-Adawiyya’s poem on divine love. 
Prepared by: Sarah Marsso 
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Resources: 

Abou-Bakr, Omaima. 2012. ‘Bride of the Qur’an’: An Aesthetic Reading of Surat al-Rahman’. Paper presented at the international workshop “Aesthetics of the Sublime” organized by the Orient Institute-Beirut & Heidelberg University (Cairo, 15-17 December, 2012).

Abou-Bakr, Omaima. 2010. ‘Articulating Gender: Muslim Women ntellectuals in the Pre-modern Period”. In: Arab Studies Quarterly 32 (3), pp. 127-144.

Al-Sharmani, Mulki. 2018. ‘Marriage in Islamic Interpretive Tradition: Revisiting the Legal and the Ethical’. In: Journal of Islamic Ethics 2( 1-2), pp.76–96.

Mir-Hosseini, Ziba, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger, eds. 2015. Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition. London: Oneworld.
https://oneworld-publications.com/men-in-charge-pb.html

wadud, amina. 2006. ‘Qur’an, Gender, and Interpretive Possibilities’. In: amina wadud. Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam, pp. 187–216. Oxford: Oneworld.

Reading the Qur’an for Ourselves: A Feminist Journey

About Feminist Power, Politics and Proposals

The Revolution Will Be Feminist—or It Won’t Be A Revolution

AWID Audio - English

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