The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Women (edited by Asma Afsaruddin)

Abstract

The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Women (Oxford University Press, 2023), edited by Asma Afsaruddin, offers a rigorous, multidisciplinary inquiry into the politicized discourses surrounding Muslim women. Bringing together leading scholars across fields, the volume interrogates the lived experiences, historical roles, textual interpretations, and global representations of Muslim women (Afsaruddin, 2023). The volume stands as a timely corrective to ideological framings that obscure the complexity, heterogeneity, and historical depth of Muslim women’s realities. This review critically evaluates the work’s contributions to Islamic studies, gender theory, and epistemologies of power, foregrounding its significance in contemporary debates on agency, reform, and religious authority. In recent decades, the figure of the Muslim woman has become both a symbol and a battleground in global ideological discourses—variously framed as a victim of religious patriarchy, a threat to liberal secularism, or a marker of authenticity in postcolonial nation-building. The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Women resists such reductive tropes. It presents instead a nuanced, rigorous, and richly layered account of Muslim women’s roles, voices, and representations across time and space. Comprising 32 chapters, the volume offers an impressive breadth of academic inquiry, encompassing historical, theological, legal, sociopolitical, and literary analyses.