About amina wadud
“If you build it, they will come”
amina wadud is The Lady Imam
Dr. amina wadud pursued her personal love of the Qur’an all the way to a Ph.D from the University of Michigan in 1988. From there she joined the International Islamic University in Malaysia. While in Malaysia, she edited her dissertation and published Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective. Also, while in Malaysia she and a collective of 7 other women organized the first major pro-faith pro-feminist organization Sister in Islam (SIS) . SIS would inspire the network Musawah, a global movement for reform in Muslim Personal Status Law. Her second book: Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam was published in 2006.
She returned to the US to complete her tenure and finally promotion to Full Professor of Islamic Studies before taking early retirement and joining the Starr King School for the Ministry as Visiting Researcher. At that time she took up international consultancy work on Islam, justice and human dignity.
Between 2016-2018 she was a researcher on Sexuality Diversity and Human Dignity in Islamic Primary sources with a generous grant from the Arcus Foundation. After which she migrated to Indonesia where she has taken up permanent residence. She will return to university teaching after the pandemic at the International Center for Religious Studies as a Visiting Scholar.
The mother of five, she is most grateful for family including six amazing grandchildren.
Awards & Recognitions
Valor Award
Presented by al-Fatihah 5th International Retreat for Queer Muslims and their Allies, Atlanta, GA.
Appreciation Award
Conference on “Reform in Islam and Women” Yeditepe University, Turkey, Board of Trustees
Recognition Award
Tempo Magazine, 5 May 2006, Istanbul, Turkey
Democracy Prize
Association of Democratic Muslims: Copenhagen, Denmark
The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World
The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre
Literary Contribution
The Inner Circle, South Africa
Contributing ally to the Queer Muslim Struggle
The Inner Circle, South Africa
What They Say
“Seen as a pioneering feminist, her last book, Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam (2006) was partly an experiment in autobiography, and included details of the threats to her life in New York.”