Amina Wadud

Amina Wadud (born Mary Teasley, 25 September 1952) is an American Muslim theologian and scholar of Islamic studies, born in Bethesda, Maryland. ^{1 2}

She was raised a Methodist — her father was a Methodist minister — and converted to Islam in 1972 while studying at the University of Pennsylvania, later changing her name to Amina Wadud. She received her MA in Near Eastern studies and her PhD in Arabic and Islamic studies from the University of Michigan in 1988, and studied in Egypt at the American University in Cairo, Cairo University and al-Azhar. ¹

She taught Qur'anic studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia (1989–1992) and then became professor of religion and philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University, retiring in 2008. Her published dissertation, Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective, argues for a gender-inclusive reading of the Qur'an, and was followed by Inside the Gender Jihad (2006). ¹

This section sets out positions as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum. In 2005 Wadud led a mixed-gender Friday prayer in New York, which drew international headlines and both support and condemnation from Muslim scholars and organisations; she has continued to lead prayers at congregations around the world and to argue for women as imams. ¹

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