Description
Book SynopsisJuxtaposing Muslim scholars' debates over women’s attendance in mosques with historical descriptions of women’s activities within Middle Eastern and North African mosques, Marion Holmes Katz shows how over the centuries legal scholars' arguments have often reacted to rather than dictated Muslim women’s behavior.
Trade ReviewA scholarly milestone.
Women in the Mosque is a comprehensive, categorical treatment of the question of women's mosque access in Islamic law and history. Marion Holmes Katz is one of the most widely respected scholars of Islamic law and ritual in the West, and, in its scope and detail, this work is peerless to my knowledge. -- Jonathan Brown, Georgetown University
Women in the Mosque will become an essential part of the library of every scholar concerned with Islamic ritual law, women in religion, women in Islam, and even religious architecture. There is something here for students of Islamic law, Ottoman history, Arab social history, and modern Muslim intellectual history. -- Kevin Reinhart, Dartmouth College
Marion Holmes Katz brings to light and adds context to the fascinating history of women's access to mosques through a dexterous presentation of a wide range of legal sources, travel accounts, contemporaneous Christian and Jewish accounts, literature, and a unique sixteenth-century manuscript recounting when women contested the ruling authorities' attempt to ban them from Islam's most sacred mosque in Mecca. A must-read for anyone interested in a solid historical account related to issues of women and gender in Islam. -- Intisar A. Rabb, Harvard Law School, and director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program
This is an extremely detailed, nuanced and precise account of women's presence in the mosque over the centuries. * Journal of Islamic Studies *
This book is praiseworthy for its extensive use of textual sources, making it an excellent source for the study of intellectual discourse on women's mobility and visibility in Islam. * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *
One of the most significant contributions to Muslim women's history and to Islamic legal studies in recent decades...pioneering and magisterial. * Der Islam *
A highly scholarly work on an important but oft-ignored aspect of women in Islam. * The Islamic Quarterly *
Extraordinary... a rich, in-depth, and often amusing analysis of the legal debates and social records of women's mosque attendance from the eighth to the early twenty-first century. * Journal of the Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World *
[An] extremely valuable book. -- Ruth Roded * Religion & Gender *
The book is of great importance to those interested in Muslim women's status, religious rights, and practice.... Highly recommended. * Choice *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
1. Women's Mosque Attendance as a Legal Problem
2. Reconstructing Practice
3. Debating Women's Mosque Access in Sixteenth-Century Mecca
4. Modern Developments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
