Embodied Experiences and Islamic Feminist Ethics: Gender Equality and Abortion in US Muslim Women’s Interpretive Communities

Abstract: This article examines how Islamic feminism, with its emphasis on embodied experiences as sources of religious knowledge, has shaped the interpretive community of US Muslim women at the Women’s Mosque of America (WMA). I discuss two trends in Islamic feminist approaches to ethics: one that models a Qur’an-centrism, and the other that incorporates the jurisprudential tradition to suggest gender-egalitarian readings of legal principles. In practice, these trends are not mutually exclusive, and Muslims draw on both to engage ethical questions in ways that are contextually bound. As the Friday khutbah is an important site for cultivating Islamic feminist ethics, I draw on two WMA khutbahs as my source material. The first focuses on how to interpret the Qur’an, and the second, on Islamic ethical perspectives on abortion. I argue that the interpretive community of US Muslim women at the WMA produces new forms of Islamic feminist ethics.