Ordinary Women as Makers of Islamic Doctrine

My position paper argues for the Islamic authority of ordinary Muslim women who are lost in the blur of a gendered everyday life in the home, dwelling at a remove from activities of the mosques and madrasas. I join feminist scholars of Islamic Studies in critiquing “ulama-ology” (cf. Dana Sajdi, 2013) i.e., the patriarchal politics of knowledge that privilege ‘ulama-led discourses written and uttered by men. I argue in my presentation for the role that diverse religious interpretations by ordinary Muslim women – i.e., women unlinked to Islamic institutions of mosques and madrasas, infantilized and silenced by men as ‘nāqiṣ al-‘aql’ (of deficient intellect) – play in shaping the meanings of texts and traditions in Islam. This demographic of Muslim women live an ordinary life performing gendered care and service work, and they make up the majority of Muslim women in the larger MESA region. I synthesize findings from my ethnographic research on women in Pakistan where ordinary Muslim women agentially create and transmit Islamic knowledge, particularly related to taboo aspects of sexuality and hygiene, situating these findings in the larger interpretive quest of locating feminist voices in the field of Islamic Studies.