Believing Women in Islam (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2019, revised edition; 2002)
Published in Indonesian as Cara Quran Membebaskan Perempuan (Jakarta, Serambi, 2005). Published in the U.K. by Saqi Press (2019).
Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an
[A] brilliantly executed work. . . . a new generation of scholar-activists . . . will take cues from such a study to open up interpretations and modes of Islamic praxis that will resonate with the avowedly non-repressive divine intentions for Muslim and other faith communities worldwide. ~Arab Studies Journal
The strength of Barlas’s work is its dual focus on methods of reading and the specific issue of patriarchal interpretations of the Qur’an. It is an interesting contribution to contemporary Muslim thought that will be useful in teaching a broad range of undergraduate and graduate courses. ~International Journal of Middle East Studies
A fascinating analysis of the woman’s position in Muslim society. . . . Barlas clearly lights a path in the Qur’an that allows Muslim women to break free of many patriarchal readings previously established. ~H-Gender-MidEast
Asma Barlas offers a refreshing analysis on the role of women in Islam by unwinding patriarchal interpretations of the Quran. ~The New Arab
Muslim feminists have two tedious battles to fight: one against those who hold on to patriarchal notions within their own community, and the other against feminists who refuse any reconciliation between feminism and any 'Abrahamic' religion, including Islam…Asma Barlas takes on these two battles with prevision, clarity and a clear purpose. ~Egyptian Streets
[Barlas] expands on the first edition by adding two new chapters that serve to strengthen and defend the premise that the Qur'an does not enforce the patriarchy and culminate in a comprehensive framework for understanding the inherent egalitarianism she argues the Qur'an professes. ~Middle East Journal
Barlas demonstrates how a Muslim believer can fully adopt an antipatriarchal reading of the Qur’anic text while maintaining belief in its Divine Providence. The intervention she makes is thus as useful to those studying the Quran (and scriptural interpretation more broadly) in the western academy as it is to Muslims searching for renewed ways to interpret their Divine Scripture in a more egalitarian spirit...This book is a passionate clarion call to dig deeper into how we receive, understand, and interpret scripture regardless of our faith commitments. ~New Books in Middle Eastern Studies
By showing the un-gendered nature of God, Barlas problematizes the stereotypical view of God as a ‘father’, a view that lends sanction and credibility to the rule of man, father; the foundation of patriarchy, and argues that because of this aspect, the Quran discredits the foundation of patriarchy itself. ~Free Press Kashmir
This is an original and, at times, groundbreaking piece of scholarship. ~John L. Esposito, University Professor and Founding Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University.
Believing Women in Islam: A Brief Introduction, with David Raeburn Finn (University of Texas Press, 2019).
A Brief Introduction presents the arguments of Believing Women in a simplified way that will be accessible and inviting to general readers and undergraduate students.
Is women’s inequality supported by the Qur’an? Do men have the exclusive right to interpret Islam’s holy scripture? In her best-selling book Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an, Asma Barlas argues that, far from supporting male privilege, the Qur’an actually encourages the full equality of women and men. She explains why a handful of verses have been interpreted to favor men and shows how these same verses can be read in an egalitarian way that is fully supported by the text itself and compatible with the Qur’an’s message that it is complete and self-consistent.
In this book, the authors continue to focus primarily on the Qur’an’s teachings about women and patriarchy. They show how traditional teachings about women’s inferiority are not supported by the Qur’an but were products of patriarchal societies that used it to justify their existing religious and social structures. The authors’ hope is that by understanding how patriarchal traditionalists have come to exercise so much authority in today’s Islam, as well as by rereading some of the Qur’an’s most controversial verses, adherents of the faith will learn to question patriarchal dogma and see that an egalitarian reading of the Qur’an is equally possible and, for myriad reasons, more plausible.
Re-Understanding Islam; Spinoza Lectures (Amsterdam, the Netherlands: van Gorcum, 2008).
Re-Understanding Islam: A Double Critique (Spinoza Lectures)
"In these two lectures [delivered in May and June 2008] Barlas offers a double critique: of Muslims, for reading sexual inequality and oppression into Islam's scripture, the Qur'an, and of "the West" for failing to develop morally relevant ways of speaking about Islam and Muslims"--Back cover.
Spinoza Lecture I
“Believing Women” in Islam: Between Secular and Religious Politics and Theology
Framework of this lecture
Why say no? Why say yes?
Secular fundamentalisms
Saying no, saying yes
Spinoza Lecture II
Would Spinoza Understand Me? Europe, Islam, and the Mirror of Difference
Framework of this lecture
Three traveling tropes
Repetition/Repression and other questions
Islam, Muslims and the US (New Delhi, India: Global Media, 2004)
Islam, Muslims and the U.S.: Essays on Religion and Politics
"9/11 marks a turning point in the public discourses on Islam in the West and in the relationship between 'Islam and the West'. Along with the US Wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, sweeping demonizations of Islam in the media, hate crimes against Muslims living in the US., there also emerged an interest on the part not only of non-Muslims, but Muslims as well, in learning about Islam.
The author discusses at length the widening schism between Muslims and the west and the way the US has taken advantage of the deadly 9/11 strikes to take its war on terror to Muslim lands. She also discusses the marginalisation of Muslim women in Muslim societies around the world and goes on to say that for the patriarchal Muslim society the other is not the 'western infidel' but the Muslim woman, while for westerners, the other has been Islam since early medieval times, much before the advent of any Bin Laden."
Democracy, Nationalism, and Communalism (Boulder, CO.: Westview Press, 1995; Routledge, 2019)
Democracy, Nationalism, and Communalism: The Colonial Legacy in South Asia
Drawing on aspects of Antonio Gramsci's theories of a passive revolution and hegemony, the author explores the social origins of divergent political systems in India (an electoral democracy) and Pakistan (subjected to military rule for much of its existence) after British colonial rule of the subcontinent ended in 1947.