American · b. 1952
Amina Wadud is an American scholar of Islam and a leading voice in Islamic feminism. She earned a PhD in Arabic and Islamic studies from the University of Michigan and taught at the International Islamic University Malaysia and at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she became professor of Islamic studies. Her first book, Qur'an and Woman (1992), rereads the Qur'anic text from a woman's perspective and argues that its core principles treat women and men as equal moral agents. She followed it with Inside the Gender Jihad (2006), which draws on her scholarship and her own experience as a Muslim woman. In 2005 she led a mixed-gender Friday prayer in New York, an act that drew wide praise and sharp criticism. She has lectured around the world and worked with groups for Muslim women's rights. Her work gave Islamic feminism a scholarly base in textual interpretation.