Women, Households, and the Hereafter in the Qur鈥檃n A Patronage of Piety
Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies
Forthcoming December 2023
It is commonly understood that the Qur鈥檃n sought to transform social and religious practices in its seventh-century Arabian milieu. Yet the nature of that transformation is debated, especially as it relates to women, warfare, kinship and community. This book offers a fresh perspective by undertaking the first historical-critical study of all the Qur鈥檃n鈥檚 verses on women, who were integral to this transformation, and by offering an initial overview of households and patronage 鈥� late antique social structures that took the place of formal state structures in the Qur鈥檃n鈥檚 tribal milieu. The findings of this study call into question common approaches to Qur鈥檃nic theology, law, and narratives, to the nature of the early community, and to women鈥檚 place in that community. Bauer and Hamza adopt a holistic method, which integrates aspects of the Qur鈥檃n that are commonly considered separately, showing, for instance, how stories act as precursors to law, with female characters acting as models for all believers. Concurrently, they highlight the Qur鈥檃n鈥檚 egalitarian approach to moral agency in existing hierarchical social structures, which the Qur鈥檃n seeks to transform both by imposing a salvific frame on them, and by fashioning a community of households characterised by morality, decorum, and care of the vulnerable. This compelling and original work proposes new paradigms for understanding the Qur鈥檃n鈥檚 social milieu and its salvific vision for that world.
List of Illustrations
Transliteration, Conventions and Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Meccan Suras
1. Women and Households in Early Meccan Suras
2. Women and Men as Equal Moral Subjects in Later Meccan Suras
3. Typological Plots of Salvation in Later Meccan Suras
Part II: Medinan Suras
4. Piety as Communal Identity (al-A岣膩b Q. 33 and al-N奴r Q. 24)
5. A Community of Households (al-Baqara Q. 2 and al-Nis膩示 Q. 4)
6. Women and Moral Agency
Part III: Implications and Conclusions
7. A Patronage of Piety
Appendix: Mother Symbolism
Bibliography
Index of Qur鈥檃nic Citations
General Index
鈥楢n essential contribution! Karen Bauer and Feras Hamza鈥檚 judicious and thorough study engages longstanding and pressing questions about the coexistence in the Qur鈥檃n of gender hierarchy with moral-spiritual equality. They show that its treatment of women and households must be understood within its salvific message 鈥� and that women and households are key to its vision of individual and communal salvation.鈥�
鈥� Kecia Ali, Boston University
鈥楤auer and Hamza鈥檚 magisterial study shows how the extensive amount of Qur鈥檃nic data on women makes compelling and coherent sense when viewed from an innovative vantage point: the importance of households in the Qur鈥檃n鈥檚 late antique Arabian milieu. Women, Households, and the Hereafter in the Qur鈥檃n brims with fresh and exciting insights into how the Qur鈥檃n ties together the social and the soteriological and how it negotiates the tension between this-worldly hierarchies and an egalitarian eschatological piety. This monograph constitutes a major advance in the scholarly understanding of the Qur鈥檃nic world-view.鈥�
鈥� Nicolai Sinai, Oxford University
鈥楢 refreshingly original contribution. The authors focus on the Qur鈥檃n鈥檚 deeply egalitarian moral message, a radical idea in the late antique Arabian social setting of households and patronage structures. For the field of gender studies, the authors offer a consistently innovative reading of the Qur鈥檃n. The sacred text鈥檚 treatment of women serves to designate the emerging Muslim community as a moral community: how can women who are vulnerable in a patriarchal patronage society become moral exemplars? The response offered is a profound revision of the traditional scholarly understanding.鈥�
鈥� Roberto Tottoli, University of Naples
Karen Bauer is a Senior Research Associate in the Qur鈥檃nic Studies Unit at 亚洲无码, London. Dr Bauer鈥檚 research centres on the Qur鈥檃n and its reception history, the history of emotions in Islam, and gender in Islamic history and thought.
Feras Hamza is a Research Fellow in the Qur鈥檃nic Studies Unit at 亚洲无码, London, and Head of the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong in Dubai, UAE.