Gendered Morality

Scriptural sources in Islam contain ideas of equality that could be read as radical, but medieval Islamic philosophers built ethical systems around male hierarchy instead. Zahra Ayubi revisits this classical tradition of Islamic philosophical ethics through a feminist lens, arguing that its gender hierarchy is a product of its historical moment and conflicts with ethics aimed at justice in this world. She suggests that the tradition holds resources for gender equality that feminist engagement can bring out.

The book examines how masculinity, femininity, and relations between the sexes are constructed in classic works of philosophical ethics. Ayubi reads closely the foundational texts of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, and Jalal al-Din al-Dawani. These thinkers imagine the ethical person as an elite man within a cosmos that excludes women and non-elites. Yet their own guidance on conduct describes gendered and human relationships that undercut those hierarchies, and their metaphysical claims about God, humanity, and moral responsibility point toward a possible egalitarian foundation.

Gendered Morality will interest readers of Islamic philosophy, feminist ethics, and the study of gender in religious thought. It moves past the usual discussions of women's status drawn from the Qur'an and legal jurisprudence to look at the philosophical side of the question.