About this Event
Join us as we examine early Muslim women as theologians, recovering their roles as authoritative interpreters of Islam while also exploring broader questions of reception and erasure. Drawing from her recent book, Feminist Theology and Social Justice in Islam: : A Study on the Sermon of Fatima, Dr. Dhala explores Fatima’s speech-act as a foundational act of women's theology, challenging emerging hadith authority. Similarly, she also highlights Fizza al-Nubiyya, whose Qur’anic fluency illustrates women's active role in shaping early Islamic thought, despite later marginalization.
Beyond historical recovery, this talk also interrogates the systems that determine how these women are remembered—or forgotten. What sources preserve their voices? Who writes about them? And what institutions shape their reception? By situating these questions within feminist theological discourse, Dr. Dhala calls for critical engagement with the politics of memory, authority, and erasure in both Islamic tradition and its academic study.
Dr. Mahjabeen Dhala teaches Islamic Studies and Comparative Theology at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, where she also served as Director of an interreligious research program, Chair of the Women’s Studies in Religion program, and Co-Editor of Teaching Theology and Religion. Her research focuses on retrieving the narratives of premodern Muslim women as theologians, exegetes, and activists. Her recent book, Feminist Theology and Social Justice in Islam: A Study on the Sermon of Fatima published by Cambridge University Press in 2024 is the first academic research of the sermon and offers a groundbreaking analysis of the Prophet’s daughter’s public protest through feminist theological and justice-centered frameworks.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Florida International University, 11200 Southwest 8th Street, Miami, United States
USD 0.00
