Women, Households, and the Hereafter in the Qur'an

An essential contribution! Karen Bauer and Feras Hamza’s judicious and thorough study engages longstanding and pressing questions about the coexistence in the Qur’an of gender hierarchy with moral-spiritual equality. They show that its treatment of women and households must be understood within its salvific message - and that women and households are key to its vision of individual and communal salvation. * Kecia Ali, Boston University *Bauer and Hamza’s magisterial study shows how the extensive amount of Qur’anic data on women makes compelling and coherent sense when viewed from an innovative vantage point: the importance of households in the Qur’an’s late antique Arabian milieu. Women, Households, and the Hereafter in the Qur’an brims with fresh and exciting insights into how the Qur’an 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’anic world-view. * Nicolai Sinai, Oxford University *A refreshingly original contribution. The authors focus on the Qur’an’s 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’an. The sacred text’s 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. * Roberto Tottoli, University of Naples *Bauer and Hamza’s arguments have contributed value to the overall discussion, and with impressive scope. I recommend this book to those interested in women in Islamic history and theology. * Samuel McKee, Reading Religion *This compelling book is a must read. With moral passion and analytical rigour, the authors skilfully unearth a complex narrative, providing a multitude of timely, acute, and original insights. This tome is an exceptionally useful guide to the topic matter and will be a valuable tool for students and researchers. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the role of women in Islamic history and theology. It is also an excellent addition to contemporary discussions in Qurʾānic studies, appealing to both university and general audiences. This gem of a book is highly recommended. * Abdullah Drury, The Muslim World Book Review *I recommend this book to those interested in women in Islamic history and theology. This is also a timely contribution to current dialogues in Qur’anic studies and would interest academic and popular audiences. * Sam McKee, Reading Religion *I recommend this book to those interested in women in Islamic history and theology. This is also a timely contribution to current dialogues in Qur’anic studies and would interest academic and popular audiences. * Sam McKee, Reading Religion *Women, Households, and the Hereafter in the Qur’an represents a significant contribution to Qur’anic studies of thematic coherence, brilliantly explicates the Qur’an through historical studies of gender and social relations in Arabia in late antiquity, and advances Islamic studies scholarship on the relationship between sex, gender, and moral striving. Bauer and Hamza contribute provocatively - almost poetically, in places - to discussions of Qur’anic morality and gender equity in Islamic thought while avoiding the common perils of oversimplification or anachronism. Given the work’s excellent synthesis of prior scholarship and substantial novel contributions to the field, Iwould venture as far as to say that any syllabus on the Qur’an would be outdated without at least an excerpt from this work. * Celene Ibrahim, Journal of Religious History *

Dr. Karen Bauer is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London. With Feras Hamza she edited An Anthology of Qur’anic Commentaries, Volume II: On Women (OUP, 2021). She is the author of Gender Hierarchy in the Qur’an: Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses and editor of Aims, Methods and Contexts of Qur’anic Exegesis (2nd/8th-9th/15th Centuries). She has written numerous articles on the history of Qur’anic interpretation, on women’s status in Islamic texts and on the history of emotions in Islam. She is the series co-editor for IQSA Studies in the Qur’an.

Dr. Feras Hamza is Head of the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong in Dubai, UAE, and is also a Senior Research Fellow in the Qur’anic Studies Unit at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London. He co-edited, with Karen Bauer, An Anthology of Qur’anic Commentaries, Volume II: On Women (OUP, 2021), and with Sajjad Rizvi and Farhana Mayer, An Anthology of Qur’anic Commentaries, Volume I: On the Nature of the Divine (OUP 2008). He is the general series editor for the multi-volume project Anthologies of Qur’anic Commentaries and has authored several historical articles on the early Muslim community, as well as articles on the epistemological and methodological approaches in Qur’anic and tafs&#299r studies.