Leila Ahmed

Kecia Ali (Foreword, 2021 edition)

Paperback, 312 pages

9780300257311

 

Historical Roots of a Modern Debate

 

A classic, pioneering account of the lives of women in Islamic history, republished for a new generation

 

This pioneering study of the social and political lives of Muslim women has shaped a whole generation of scholarship. In it, Leila Ahmed explores the historical roots of contemporary debates, ambitiously surveying Islamic discourse on women from Arabia during the period in which Islam was founded to Iraq during the classical age to Egypt during the modern era. The book is now reissued with a new foreword by Kecia Ali situating the text in its scholarly context and explaining its enduring influence.

 

Contents

1: The Pre-Islamic Middle East

Mesopotamia

Mediterranean Middle East

 

2: Founding Discourses

Women and the Rise of Islam

The Transitional Age

Elaboration of the Founding Discourses

Medieval Islam

 

3: New Discourses

Social and Intellectual Change

The Discourse of the Veil

The First Feminists

Divergent Voices

The Struggle for the Future