GENDER JUSTICE IN ISLAM: AN EVALUATION OF ZIBA MIR-HOSSEINI’S RELIGIOUS EPISTEMOLOGY BY EXAMINING HER INTERPRETATION OF QUR’AN 4:34

This thesis examines Mir-Hosseini’s hermeneutical strategies to reinterpret how Islam understands gender equality by evaluating whether she allows the text to speak or uses specific hermeneutical methods to create the desired egalitarian meaning. I argue that her strategies fail to succeed by examining her understanding of Qur’an 4:34, which she considers the linchpin to furthering gender oppression in Islam, by utilizing Aysha A. Hidayatullah’s work as a framework of examination. I evaluate the interpretive choices she uses to recover gender equality in the Qur’anic and the hadith texts and show that her effort fails to show that the Islamic texts teach the gender equality she purports that they teach.