Back to All Events

How Deep Do the Problems in Our Ethical-legal Deliberations (fiqh) Go? Retrieving Justice and Beauty in Muslim Marriage

CCMW Muslim Women Scholars Series: March Edition

How Deep Do the Problems in Our Ethical-legal Deliberations (fiqh) Go? Retrieving Justice and Beauty in Muslim Marriage

Speaker: Dr. Nevin Reda (University of Toronto)

Date: March 16, 2023

Time: 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm EST

This talk introduces the new Musawah project, Justice and Beauty in Muslim Marriage: Towards Egalitarian Ethics and Laws, edited by Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, Jana Rumminger, and Sarah Marsso (London: Oneworld Academic, 2022). It takes a deep dive into usul al-fiqh (Islamic ethical-legal theory), showing some of the methodological problems and their manifestations in the construction of marriage and proposing solutions. It connects between spirituality and the realm of law/ethics, highlighting the importance of marriage as an institution for spiritual advancement and the foundational role it plays in instilling ethics and values, such as fidelity, justice, compassion, and generosity, all of which are essential for spiritual growth. It suggests that without justice in marriage, there can be no justice in society at the different levels for which there is a dying need today.

This seminar is brought to you by CCMW and co-sponsored by The Centre for Religion and Its Contexts at Emmanuel College.

About Dr. Nevin Reda

Nevin Reda is associate professor of Muslim Studies at Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto. Her research interests include the poetics and hermeneutics of Qurʾanic narrative structure, Hebrew Bible and Qurʾan, spiritually integrative approaches to the Qurʾan, Islamic feminist hermeneutics and Islamic ethical-legal theory. Her publications include The al-Baqara Crescendo: Understanding the Qurʾan’ Style, Narrative, Structure and Running Themes (2017) and a co-edited volume, Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice: Processes of Canonization, Subversion, and Change (2020).


About Muslim Women Scholars Series

The Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) is pleased to present the Muslim Women Scholars Series. One of CCMW's strategic goals is to promote critical thinking among Muslims and non-Muslims to challenge stereotypes and assumptions about Islam, Muslim women and their families. One way of doing this is to feature the work of contemporary Muslim women scholars focusing on diverse topics related to Muslim women.