Particularly in the last decades, due to the rapid development of theoretical perspectives across disciplines, the notion of gender has evolved into an umbrella term that today refers to a broad array of themes: from gender-defined social behaviour to sexual and reproductive rights and to matters related to control over one’s body. Following major trends in the humanities and social sciences, also the field of Islamic studies has been contributing to the ongoing scholarly discussion on gender. Two recent volumes that focus specifically on gender issues in Muslim societies (Duderija et al., 2020; Howe, 2020) have marked the expansion of the field, away from dealing primarily with topics related to Muslim women and femininity to a cautious but firm engagement with a broader spectrum of gender-related themes. The goal of the present issue of Islamology is to contribute to this advancement. Thereby, we do not aim to test the limits of scholarly and popular debates, as this is challenging to implement under the present conditions. However, we hope to draw the attention of our readers to several case studies selected for this issue in order to demonstrate the potential of a gender-based approach within Islamic studies to provide novel and valuable insights. 

This paper investigates the twelfth-century commentary on Plato’s Republic by the Andalusian Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes). Ibn Rushd is considered to be the only Muslim philosopher who commented on the Republic. Written around 375 BC, Plato’s Republic discusses the order and character of a just city-state and contains revolutionary ideas on the position and qualities of women, which remained contested also in Ibn Rushd’s time. This Muslim philosopher is primarily known as the most esteemed commentator of Aristotle. However, for the lack of an Arabic translation of Aristotle’s Politics, Ibn Rushd commented on the political theory of Aristotle’s teacher, i.e. Plato’s Republic, instead. In his commentary, Ibn Rushd juxtaposes examples from Plato’s context and those from contemporary Muslim societies. Notably, when he diverges from the text, he does not drift off toward more patriarchal, Aristotelian interpretations. On the contrary, he argues that women are capable of being rulers and philosophers, that their true competencies remain unknown as long as they are deprived of education, and that this situation is detrimental to the flourishing of the city. This article aims to critically analyse Ibn Rushd’s statements on the position of women, as well as their reception in scholarly literature.

When early Islamic jurists outlined the marriage law, they codified a gendered model of conjugal rights and duties that privileged men over women. A similar development also took place regarding sexual rights as women’s pleasure and sexual gratification became secondary to those of men. Specialists in this period of Islamic history have argued that the gender ideologies prevalent in the early Abbasid society, which enabled an androcentric definition of Islam, should be seen as the primary cause for the inequality within the Islamic marriage system. This paper aims to show that Abbasid gender ideologies, contrary to popular descriptions, were not homogenous. Two major trends in understanding female sexuality during the early Abbasid period will be discussed. The first, androcentric trend that focused primarily on male sexual gratification was in conflict with a more women-friendly attitude; the latter was advocated in a number of literary genres, including medical handbooks, popular stories, educational and ethics literature. These works accentuated the importance of female sexual health and favoured female pleasure as a necessary element for mutual sexual satisfaction and marital happiness. The paper illustrates that some aspects from this more women-friendly approach to sexuality were adopted in later legal opinions that sought to correct the most visible cases of inequality in the social institution of marriage.

Providing spiritual ‘safe spaces’, the Sufi shrine-world throughout the Indian Subcontinent is generally open to those who do not identify with conventional gender categories. Ajmer Sharif Shrine (dargāh) in the northern Indian town of Ajmer in Rajasthan is renowned for being particularly ‘inclusive’. It accepts all pilgrims without discrimination, including the so-called ‘third gender’, often referred to as hijras or kinnars, terms that transgress the socially-defined binary gender divide. Marginalized, and often socially stigmatized, these groups are naturally drawn towards liminal spaces such as Sufi dargāhs which encourage the transcendence of socio-religious boundaries. This paper explores certain typological aspects of traditional Sufi ritual and belief that make it particularly receptive to hijras, and the way in which hijras in turn appropriate and reconfigure Sufi religious belief to negotiate the tension between the liminality of their lived experience and the exclusive duality of the society around them. As well as utilizing fieldwork undertaken at the 808th ޏurs festival in 2020, the paper also draws upon the experiences of the fictional protagonist Anjum of Arundhati Roy’s second novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, together with those of Mona Ahmed (1937–2017), the inspiration behind Roy’s novel and the most famous hijra of Delhi.

Using the example of the Republic of Tatarstan (Russia), this article discusses the emergence of the field of medical services for Muslims. It argues that genderisation of social interactions, in particular, of those between physicians and patients, has been one of the main principles of Muslim bioethics in the Republic. Among other measures, halal certification procedures are currently being developed by numerous religious experts in order to standardise and legitimise such genderisation. The analysis draws on data collected during multiple interviews with experts, medical professionals, Muslim patients, as well as on the qualitative study of regulatory documents. The article shows that the main feature of rules that govern certification procedures in Tatarstan today is the ongoing convergence between religious norms and biomedicine. As a particular example of medical services designed explicitly for Muslims in the Republic, the paper presents and analyses the service of “halal birth-giving”. This service combines commodification of religiosity and paid care for Muslim women, thereby heavily relying on their gender and religious identities, as well as their class status.

The book under review is authored by Ludovic-Mohammed Zahed (b. 1977), a French scholar of social psychology and the founder of Homosexuels musulmans de France, an association for gay and queer Muslims in France. With his work Zahed, who identifies as a feminist, gay Muslim and holds a position of an imam in an inclusive mosque in Paris, seeks to contribute to the expanding body of academic work that engages with issues of gender and sexuality in Islam. As his sources of inspiration, he names Islamic feminist scholars Fatima Mernissi (e.g. 1987; 2003) and Amina Wadud (1999; 2008), as well as a prominent scholar on sexual diversity in Islam, Scott Siraj Kugle (2010; 2013). If Islamic feminist studies have already evolved into an established field that has its roots in the 1980s, topics of homosexuality and non-binary gender identity in Islam have begun attracting scholarly interest only relatively recently. Particularly in the last decade, there has been a visible growth in the number of published works that have engaged with these topics from theological, sociological, and historical perspectives (e.g., Roscoe & Murray, 1997; El-Rouayheb, 2009; Habib, 2010; Shah, 2018). Challenging the premise that homophobia and misogyny are in compliance with Islamic ethical values, Zadeh’s book clearly draws on the arguments developed in these trailblazing works. 

Among the theologians who influenced the processes of re-Islamisation in late Soviet and early post-Soviet Central Asia, the name of Sayyid Mahmud Tarazi (ca. 1895–1991) deserves special attention. Better known by his honorary nickname Altinkhan-tura, he was an authoritative Turkestani emigrant and prominent scholar. The present article o!ers preliminary research on the dissemination in Soviet Uzbekistan of his most famous work: the first complete interlinear translation of the Qur’an with commentary in Central Asian Turki. In less than half a century, this work has undergone more than ten publications in various regions of the Muslim world. As archaeographic and field research indicates, Tarazi’s translation has been featuring in personal library collections of some local religious figures, including prominent “o"cial” and “uno"cial” theologians from the region, and could have impacted their own work. Since the personality of Tarazi has not yet wholly entered the academic discourse on “Soviet Islam”, the article also provides a brief biography of the scholar in the context of his direct and “secret” links to local ҵulamāҴ. The focus of this article on the history of the dissemination of Tarazi’s Qur’an translation allows illuminating some of the re-Islamisation processes that took place in Central Asia during the period under review