The Qur’an, Women and Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd’s Hermeneutics A Critical Reflection on the ‘Women’s Question Between the Hammer of Modernity and the Anvil of Traditions: A Study in the History of Texts’

While Abū Zayd’s broader intellectual contributions are widely acknowledged, his extensive engagement with women and gender remains relatively underexplored. In addition to several papers, he authored two major volumes on the subject: Al-mar’a fī khiṭāb al-azma (Women in the Discourse of Crisis, 1994) and Dawā’ir al-khawf: Qirā’a fī khiṭāb al-mar’a (Circles of Fear: A Reading of the Discourse on Women, 2004). This article examines the intersection between Abū Zayd’s hermeneutic project and the ‘women’s question’ in his seminal 1999 study, Qaḍiyyat al-mar’a bayn sindān al-ḥadātha wa miṭraqat al-taqālīd: Dirāsa fī tārīkh al-nuṣūṣ (The Question of Women Between the Anvil of Modernity and the Hammer of Tradition: A Study in the History of Texts)2. It does so in conjunction with the English and Turkish translations of this study and their publication in the Kadem Journal of Women’s Studies. By engaging with Abū Zayd’s analysis of women’s issues through the lens of his broader methodological framework, this article assesses the scope, constraints, and broader implications of his work for debates on the Qurʾān and women.