Created After, From, and For the Man?

This article examines the diachronic development of Shiʿi exegetic discourse on the sentence Khalaqakum min nafs wāḥida wa-khalaqa minhā zawjahā (“created you from a single soul and created its mate from it”) in the Quranic verse 4:1, customarily read as describing the creation of the first couple,...

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Autor principal: Katja von Schöneman
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Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Columbia University Libraries 2021
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:20298d8aa64d4ef2ab3f298aa7c104df2021-12-05T18:56:57ZCreated After, From, and For the Man? 10.52214/uw.v29i1.88971068-1051https://doaj.org/article/20298d8aa64d4ef2ab3f298aa7c104df2021-12-01T00:00:00Zhttps://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/alusur/article/view/8897https://doaj.org/toc/1068-1051 This article examines the diachronic development of Shiʿi exegetic discourse on the sentence Khalaqakum min nafs wāḥida wa-khalaqa minhā zawjahā (“created you from a single soul and created its mate from it”) in the Quranic verse 4:1, customarily read as describing the creation of the first couple, Adam and Eve. Applying feminist discourse analysis and focusing on the Arabic-language commentaries of twelve premodern Imāmī exegetes from the third/ninth to the eleventh/seventeenth century, my study reveals that the medieval commentary material both accumulated and transformed along a hermeneutical trajectory comprising three distinctive discursive stages. The first stage established the lore on Eve’s creation in dismissive terms, and the second strengthened these misogynous views to make the potential substance of Eve’s creation even more negligible. This concept was further expanded in the third discursive stage, in which the weak woman, inclined toward the material and the corporal, was seen as created to provide service and entertainment for the man. Her creation was thus used to justify gender hierarchy, even the seclusion of women. Katja von SchönemanColumbia University LibrariesarticleHistory of AsiaDS1-937Medieval historyD111-203ENAl-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā, Vol 29, Iss 1 (2021)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic History of Asia
DS1-937
Medieval history
D111-203
spellingShingle History of Asia
DS1-937
Medieval history
D111-203
Katja von Schöneman
Created After, From, and For the Man?
description This article examines the diachronic development of Shiʿi exegetic discourse on the sentence Khalaqakum min nafs wāḥida wa-khalaqa minhā zawjahā (“created you from a single soul and created its mate from it”) in the Quranic verse 4:1, customarily read as describing the creation of the first couple, Adam and Eve. Applying feminist discourse analysis and focusing on the Arabic-language commentaries of twelve premodern Imāmī exegetes from the third/ninth to the eleventh/seventeenth century, my study reveals that the medieval commentary material both accumulated and transformed along a hermeneutical trajectory comprising three distinctive discursive stages. The first stage established the lore on Eve’s creation in dismissive terms, and the second strengthened these misogynous views to make the potential substance of Eve’s creation even more negligible. This concept was further expanded in the third discursive stage, in which the weak woman, inclined toward the material and the corporal, was seen as created to provide service and entertainment for the man. Her creation was thus used to justify gender hierarchy, even the seclusion of women.
format article
author Katja von Schöneman
author_facet Katja von Schöneman
author_sort Katja von Schöneman
title Created After, From, and For the Man?
title_short Created After, From, and For the Man?
title_full Created After, From, and For the Man?
title_fullStr Created After, From, and For the Man?
title_full_unstemmed Created After, From, and For the Man?
title_sort created after, from, and for the man?
publisher Columbia University Libraries
publishDate 2021
url https://doaj.org/article/20298d8aa64d4ef2ab3f298aa7c104df
work_keys_str_mv AT katjavonschoneman createdafterfromandfortheman
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