An analysis and critique of Fazlur Rahman’s interpretive theory as a methodological basis for some feminine readings of Quran

In recent decades there have been new readings of holy Quran by Muslim women including authors known as “Islamic feminists”. This group of women such as Amina Wadud, Azizah Al-Hibri, Asma Barlas and Sadia sheikh are significantly influenced in their applied methodology by Fazlur Rahman’s interpretive theory. Rahman bases his Qur’anic hermeneutics on a theory of prophecy and revelation and also an understanding of history. He invites us to make distinction between normal Islam and historical Islam and calls for separating religious Ideals from religion’s contingencies for the sake of presenting Islam to the modern world. According to him, any reconstruction of Islamic thought primarily needs a comprehensive study of the Quran for its ethical worldview. He is concerned with reviving Ijtihad and defines it according to his own “two-way movement”. His methodological influence is obvious in the works of so-called “Islamic feminism” authors, then analysis and critique of his interpretive theory is in fact an analysis and critique of their readings. This paper takes “analytical research” and “dialectical criticism” as its methodical approaches and finally concludes that Rahman’s interpretive theory, though having new inspirations and hermeneutic inventions, cannot work as a well-found theological-methodological base for alternative interpretations, without creating new problematic faults.