The book is a brilliant introduction and conceptualization of the interdisciplinary field of Islamic feminism. Sharmani spotlights the scholarship and trajectories of nine women scholars from the global south and north, whose hermeneutical engagements with the Islamic interpretive tradition constitute important contributions to reformist knowledge building projects and gender activism.

Hoda Elsadda, Cairo University, Egypt

We’ve been waiting for this! Developing consistently through the past 40 years, Muslim feminist thought is well deserving of an analytic synthesis that discerns its historical and more recent threads, demonstrates its social and real-life impacts in shaping present realities and forecasting the needs for feminist Muslim future. Mulki Al-Sharmani has done just this; with deep insight, keen analysis and wisdom drawn from her own engagement in Muslim feminist scholarship and activism, she offers a much-needed presentation of key moments, ideas and actions that are shaping the landscape of Muslim feminist thought. The backstory of the book, which is the necessary connections of scholarship with social action, epistemology and methodology, hermeneutics and activism, confirms the feminist politics that cradle Al-Sharmani’s rich and much needed work. This book will provide young scholars with a clear trajectory of what has been and a promising forecast for what can still come.

Fatima Seedat, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Written by an eminent scholar-activist and Islamic feminist herself, this book beautifully and confidently navigates the artificial boundary between normative and analytical approaches to Muslim women’s studies and offers a guiding map to understanding Islamic feminism as a movement that simultaneously produces knowledge and engages in activist change of Muslim societies and communities. An extremely valuable resource.

Juliane Hammer, UNC Chapel Hill. USA