The Perplexity of a Muslim Woman

Over Inheritance, Marriage, and Homosexuality

By (author) Olfa Youssef Translated by Lamia Benyoussef

Publication date:

08 March 2017

Length of book:

164 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498541695

Using the methodology of modern scholars in the fields of Arabic lexicography, linguistics, and psychoanalysis, Tunisian feminist scholar Olfa Youssef investigates the rulings about inheritance, marriage, and homosexuality in the Qur’anic text itself and compares them with the interpretations provided by male Muslim theologians and legal scholars from medieval times to the present. In this book, she makes five central arguments: (1) There is a discrepancy between the layered signification in the Qur’anic text itself and the sutured explanations by religious scholars which have been enacted into law in many Muslim countries today; (2) the plurality of meanings is the quintessential essence of the Qur’an as evidenced in the absence of any sura over which there was unanimous agreement among Muslim scholars; (3) when male privilege was at stake, male legal scholars, to protect their own interests, ignored the divine text and based their rulings on human consensus; (4) Muslim medieval views on gender and homosexuality were more tolerant than contemporary ones; and finally (5), preferring indetermination and perplexity over the finality and certainties found in the judgements of male theologians, Youssef argues that only God knows the Qur’an’s true meaning. Her job as a Muslim female scholar is only to raise questions over those human interpretations that many Muslim societies mistake for divine will.

Translator’s Preface
Introduction

Chapter 1. Perplexity over Inheritance
Perplexity One: Inheritance: Between Divine Compulsion and Human Choice
Perplexity Two: Who Are They Who Inherit?
Perplexity Three: Does the Male Get Twice the Share of the Female?
Perplexity Four: Do Grandchildren and Grandparents Inherit?
Perplexity Five: Agnatic Inheritance (Al Ta’seeb)
Perplexity Six: Disinheritance
Perplexity Seven: Al Kalāla
That Which Lies After Perplexity

Chapter 2. Perplexity over Marriage
Perplexity One: Is the Dowry a Marriage Requisite?
Perplexity Two: Is the Dowry a Payment for a Woman’s Sex?
Perplexity Three: The Obedience to the Husband in Bed
Perplexity Four: The Marriage of Pleasure
Perplexity Five: Anal Intercourse
Perplexity Six: Child Marriage
Perplexity Seven: Polyandry and Polygamy
Perplexity Eight: The ‘Iddah
Perplexity Nine: Sex with One’s Hand
That Which Lies After Perplexity

Chapter 3. Perplexity over Homosexuality
Perplexity One: Bisexuality in the Qur’an
Perplexity Two: Sihāq stories, or why did the Qur’an remain silent over sihāq?
Perplexity Three: Sihāq in Qur’anic Rulings
Perplexity Four: Liwāt Stories
Perplexity Five: Liwāt in Qur’anic Rulings
Perplexity Six: Why Was Lot’s Wife Punished?
Perplexity Seven: Punishment for Sihāq and Liwāt
Perplexity Eight: Are the Ghilmān of Heaven for Sexual Service?
That Which Lies After Perplexity

Chapter 4. Conclusion

Appendix A. Index of Qur’anic Verses
Appendix B. Index of Hadiths

This fine work is the first ever Arabic work in Islamic Studies written by a woman scholar to be translated into English. . . . Reading this courageous work, I felt the same sense of elation as when I first read the Christian Feminists Rosemary Ruether and Mary Daly. . . Many of her perplexities are shared with Christians too. Both of our faiths need the prophetic questioning and hope this book provides."