Women in the Qur'an, Traditions and Interpretation By Barbara Freyer Stowasser. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1994, 206 pp.

Abstract

It takes a book like Barbara Freyer Stowasser's Women in the
Qur'an, Traditions and Interpretation to help extricate the complex
images of Muslim women from the gross overgeneralization characteristic
of popular western media. Truly understanding that complexity
requires a look at all of the components that make up the Islamic worldview,
from its primary sources ideologically to its cultural history as it
has affected the lives of Muslims. Such a look has been offered in
Stowasser's book.
I was very excited by the cross-referential methodology proposed by
the author in her introduction and her actual use of it throughout the text.
She moves among Qur'anic passages, earlier tafasir, hadith traditions, as
well as among contenders in modem Islamic discourse: modernists, traditionalists,
and fundamentalists (pp. 5-7). As a result, the reader views
different responses to ideas about specific women from the Qur'anic text
while knowing precisely the source of certain ideas.
This is not the usual diatribe that confuses indiscriminately fact with
mythology, intellectual tradition with popular culture, and results in misinforming
the already ill-informed reader. Moreover, Stowasser avoids
the other popular extreme: diminishing everything to a single factor, such
as gross misogyny, for example. Although she distinguishes between the
various strains that make up a complex picture, she does not merely
regurgitate the historical legacy but rather offers critical analysis and
demonstrates her capability in deciphering the various components in the
internal Islamic debates as well.
Perhaps the complexity of the cross-referential methodology limits the
breadth of the subject matter. We can understand how complex notions of
the place of Muslim women in society have resulted from these various
references, even though we get no hint at what that place is from this work.
The characters analyzed are limited to the specific female characters given
individual attention in the Qur'anic text and to the wives of the Prophet.
These models of virtue and .struggle, failure and frustration, can and have ...