GISC Rabbi Elliott T. Spar Politics and Culture in the Muslim World Series. Muslim Women’s Rulings: Issuing Fatwas in Indonesia

Muslim Women's Rulings
Participants : 
  • Nor Ismah (Deputy Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Islam at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Indonesia)
  • Daniel Birchok (Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan-Flint)
Event Date: 
January 24, 2024
Event Time: 
5:00pm to 7:00pm
Location: 
Virtual
Event Accessibility : 
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact islamicstudies@umich.edu, we would be happy to help! Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
Event Tags: 
cosponsored event
Muslim Women's Rulings

RSVP: https://bit.ly/MWRFatwas

Join University of Michigan visiting scholar from Indonesia Dr. Nor Ismah and the Global Islamic Studies Center (GISC) on January 24th, 2024 at 5:00 PM for a talk on “Muslim Women’s Rulings: Issuing Fatwas in Indonesia.” The event is moderated by U-M Professor Daniel Birchok and is part of our GISC Rabbi Elliott T. Spar Politics and Culture in the Muslim World Series.

In this talk, Dr. Nor Ismah explores the pivotal religious and community roles of Muslim women in Java, Indonesia, who assume positions as ulama (scholars) and religious leaders and issue fatwas, Islamic arbitration decisions. Their fatwas incorporate women's perspectives and traditional and progressive Islamic textual interpretations, earning them religious authority comparable to male ulama. Despite gender constraints in areas involving authority over men, women ulama actively challenge male dominance in Islamic scholarship. Dr. Nor Ismah’s work sheds light on the transformative impact of female ulama, illuminating the nuanced dynamics of gender, authority, and knowledge production in contemporary Indonesian Muslim communities at the grassroots and national levels.

This talk is a part of the GISC Rabbi Elliott T. Spar “Politics and Culture in the Muslim World” series. Each talk in the series focuses on a different region or country in the Muslim world that is under-recognized in U.S. discourse on Islam and Muslims.

This event is brought to you by the Global Islamic Studies Center (GISC) at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and cosponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC), and the Institute for Research on Women & Gender (IRWG).

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