ABSTRACT
Interfeminist dialogue may benefit from difference as a resource in exploring traditional understandings of scriptural authority. The majority of Islamic feminist discourse centres on the legal rights and responsibilities. The present book researches women's voices in the sacred text as formative of the female subject in Islamic religious texts, focusing primarily on the Qur'an. The humanist notion of agency that is expressed in terms of freedom and rational choice has been problematized in poststructuralist theory. Feminist theorists, initially from disparate backgrounds such as Africana Womanism, Latino and Continental Feminism, critiqued notions of female subjectivity as defined by humanist libertarian ideals that located female expression in autonomy and non-compliance with, or resistance to, systems that do not promote female subjectivity. Rippin concludes that the Qur'an's language of divine human relation through reference to facial expressions stresses the responsibility of human beings for their own actions in their search for a life in relationship with God.
