Liberation Theology: Islam And The Feminist Agenda In The Qur'an

In his 2007 book, Naseef directly confronts the issue of feminine marginalization in religious, social, and cultural matters. He makes a strong case for Islam, guided by its source material, the Qur’an, as a major religion which has within its confines the outline for a truly just and gender-balanced society. Naseef states in his prologue that “at the heart of the world’s fastest growing religion-Islam- is a theology that offers women spiritual fulfillment coupled with virtually all of the legal advances they seek.” (1) In other words, the Qur’an is a feminist document of liberation, thus making Islam a particularly liberating theology for women. Naseef fills his book with many examples of this divine mandate of gender equality and liberation as he quotes the Qur’an regarding such issues as the Qur’an’s stand on ending female infanticide, equality of relationships between men and women, the right to justice, equity and equal protection, the right to political participation by women, the right of economic security, the right to inherit, and the right to be free of sexual exploitation. Naseef very carefully and with scholarly precision lays out exact locations in the scripture in which these points are stressed, and remarks at how unambiguous these statements appear within the Qur’an, in relation to similar passages of Judaeo-Christian scripture on these same issues.
Naseef wades into contemporary matters and how the Qur’an treats such matters as well. He points out that there is a mis-characterization of some states or organizations who call themselves Islamic as “Islamic extremists’ in the West. Naseef counters that these entities, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan or the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, are not practicing Islam at all. These are, rather, “violations of the Qur’an,”(7) and therefore, illegitimate and oppressive actions which are not part of Islam at all. Naseef writes this book in order to set the record straight for all those who look at Islam, either from a strategic viewpoint or one seeking to understand it from an ecumenical standpoint. He wants to show the world that Islam, guided by the Qur’an, is a movement of liberation for all who are oppressed, and at the same time specifically suited to addressing the needs of women and girls who find themselves at a disadvantage in their worldly engagements.
Naseef is writing from the point of view of a devout believer who sees the real truth of the Qur’anic message and wants to ensure that this truth is made evident to all those who misperceive Islam as a religion of violence and exploitation of women. He sets about debunking interpretations of Scripture, in the Qur’an at least, which present women as somehow inferior. Naseef is most affective in this pursuit when he visits the story of Eve, mother of the human race, as she is presented in both the Qur’an and the Hebrew Bible. In the respective creation stories, Naseef shows the dichotomy between the Eve who is condemned as being at fault for the fall of Adam and herself and their subsequent loss of paradise, as presented in the Hebrew Bible, and the equal and autonomous Eve of the Qur’an, who bears an equal responsibility and thus an equal burden with her husband as they deal with the consequences of their actions. There is no special condemnation of Eve as the original temptress and thus bearer of a greater responsibility for human hardship. This is a key point that Naseef makes, as it takes away the impetus used by Judaeo-Christian theologians in the centuries to come for condemning women and thus excluding them from their rightful place as equal partners in human society.
Liberation Theology: Islam and the Feminist Agenda in the Qur’an, goes a long way toward validating Naseef’s thesis that Islam, guided by the Qur’an, is truly a liberating document. Chapter Four in particular is a very strong section of the book, as it addresses several misconceptions about Islam and the Qur’an, and categorically shows what the true teachings are that lie behind these misconceptions. His treatment of the issue of the hijab is especially potent (217). Naseef demonstrates that the whole idea of ‘veiling’ one’s thought and ideas, as a wife of the Prophet, is basic common sense and has a contextual specificity which belies the compulsory practice of keeping women in the home today. Naseef gives this and other misconceptions a balanced treatment, demonstrating over and over how the actual words of the Scripture have a clarity and unambiguity which make for a very reliable ethical guide.
The conclusion of Naseef’s book is a reiteration of a theme that runs throughout-that the Qur’an is a document which relies on and encourages its readers to use the common sense and logic granted to them by their creator, Allah. Naseef drives home the idea that believers are to avoid blind obedience to any worldly authority, and to critically examine their own beliefs, even as they are laid out in the Qur’an, as these beliefs are not themselves the one God, but manifestations of the relationship with that God. The book again returns to addressing the present situation of women in nominally Islamic states, and again pulls out the source material in the Qur’an which shows that such treatment of women is unsanctioned and indeed, condemned by the Allah represented in the Qur’an. As Naseef finally points out, all human beings, male and female, are equally responsible and morally viable as agents of the one true God, and it is up to each one, ultimately, to find their own interpretation of the Scriptures by which they can live and contribute to a just society.
Naseef offers helpful indexes to his book synopsizing examples of both misogyny in Judaeo-Christian scripture as well as women’s rights in the Qur’an. From the standpoint of an overall project examining the viability of Islam as a theology of liberation, this work as a whole adds strong support to the basic argument in favor of seeing Islam as a liberation theology, and in addition, a genuinely critical examination of the particular impact of the Qur’an on the position of women as full agents in their own pursuit of justice and liberation.