American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism More Than a Prayer By Juliane Hammer (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2012. 271 pages.)

Abstract

In American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More Than a
Prayer, Juliane Hammer traces recent conversations around gender and religion
within American Muslim communities. Taking as a starting point the mixedgender
Friday prayer led by Amina Wadud in 2005, the author examines how
questions of gendered religious authority have been negotiated through interpretations
of scripture and religious laws, challenges to constructions of tradition
and community, contestations surrounding prayer spaces, and representations
of Muslim women in the media and autobiographical narratives.
100 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 31:1
The result is a valuable and insightful mapping of some of the major
scholars, activists, and public figures engaged in work related to women, gender,
and Islam in North America. Based on an analysis of texts produced by
female American Muslim scholars and writers since the 1980s and especially
within the past decade, the book highlights women’s contributions to debates
around women-led prayer, Qur’anic interpretations, women’s spaces in
mosques, and women’s leadership within Muslim communities, among other
issues. Hammer acknowledges that of many of the texts she studies have a
“progressive” leaning, but frames this as itself a research finding that reflects
the perspectives and voices most likely to be published or otherwise highlighted
within an American context ...