ʿAbdulḥalīm Abū Shuqqa’s The Liberation of Women in the Age of Revelation: A Translation and Critical Commentary
Abstract
One of Muslim scholars’ modern endeavors is to identify Islam’s egalitarian and liberating views on women as espoused by its earliest sources— the Qur’an and hadith. ʿAbdulḥalīm Abū Shuqqa makes such an attempt in his six-volume, Arabic book titled “The Liberation of Women in the Age of Revelation” (Taḥrīr al-Mar’a fī ‘Aṣr al-Risāla) published in 1995. He shows evidence from the Qur’an and authentic hadith reports for women’s autonomy, involvement in communal worship, public life, politics, battlefields, and professional work, among other activities. In an attempt to analyze and bring what was considered a ‘breakthrough’ in the Islamic discourse on women to a wider audience, this thesis provides an annotated translation of four chapters from the book’s first volume that addresses Muslim women’s character in the Qur’an and hadith, supported by a critical introduction that discusses the reception of the book and situates it within contemporary Islamic discourses on women.