Ep. 12 | Revisiting 'Women and Gender in Islam' | Leila Ahmed and Kecia Ali

Professor Leila Ahmed's book, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (1992) was published in a time in which there was little scholarship on the history of women in Islam. Over the years, it became a classic and was re-published in 2021 with a new foreword by Professor Kecia Ali, who has used it in her own scholarship and also consistently in her teaching. In this episode, we talk to both scholars about Professor Ahmed's scholarship and the study of women and gender within Islamic studies, how far the field has come, and the work still ahead.

Leila Ahmed is Victor S. Thomas Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. She came to Harvard as the Divinity School's first Professor of Women's Studies in Religion in 1999 and became Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity in 2003. She is the author of many publications including Edward William Lane: A Study of His Life and Work and of British Ideas of the Middle East in the Nineteenth Century (1978), Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (1992), A Border Passage: From Cairo to America - A Woman's Journey (2000), and A Quiet Revolution: The Resurgence of the Veil from the Middle East to America (2011).

Kecia Ali is Professor of Religion at Boston University, where her research and teaching focus on Islamic law, women and gender, ethics, and biography. Her most recent book is the open-access edited volume Tying the Knot: A Feminist/Womanist Guide to Muslim Marriage in America. Twitter: @kecia_ali

Credits and transcript