wadud, amina

amina wadud is professor emeritus of Islamic Studies and Visiting Researcher at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California. She is the author of Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective (1999) and Inside the Gender Jihad: Reform in Islam (2006). She also edited Introduction to Islam, published in 2010. An internationally recognized Muslim scholar and activist, wadud has informed the ideas and trajectories of numerous students, practitioners, and scholars in the fields of Qur’anic hermeneutics, gender studies, and the academic study of Islam for more than three decades. She also has drawn both acclaim and condemnation for her written and embodied responses to gender oppression—whether formulated by Muslims and/or as strategies in which Muslims participate either intentionally or unconsciously. Her embodied ethics has led to the global label of “Lady Imam.” Ultimately, wadud strives to think abstractly, live spiritually, and still play in the street. Her major methodological contribution is the “tawhidic paradigm.”