ABSTRACT
Wadud claims to explore gender in the Qur'an from an exclusively Qur'anic point of view without ascribing to traditional explanations and comments on female presences in the text. Wadud therefore furnishes the reader with a list of female characters in the Qur'an as an appendix to her study, stating that there are so few female individuals in the Qur'an that is possible to include a complete list. Wadudian hermeneutics assert that the religious meaning derived from literary approaches has a further implication for the gender of the reader. Barbara Freyer Stowasser's listing of women in the Qur'an presents a systematic examination of female figures in the Qur'an, distinguished from their traditional significance in Islamic exegesis. Stowasser's omissions are therefore as enlightening as her exposition of the traditional role models for Muslim women. Traditional Islamic scholarship on the Qur'an as literature stresses the uniqueness, or inimitability, of the Qur'an, holding to an idea that the Qur'an derives from a heavenly original.
