To Blog or Not to Blog? Is That Even a Question..? by amina wadud

I just want to introduce myself to this blogging forum Feminism and Religion. I will join and then try to keep some kind of pace, so before I jump right in on this that or the other personal and or political topic of interest or inspiration, let me locate myself in blog-relative terms.

The first time I ever participated in a public forum blog was also related to women and religion, but with the word “spirituality” in its title.  For me, there is no divide: to discuss religion I must discuss feminism, and to discuss feminism, I must discuss spirituality.  You will see how these are interwoven, contested and re-woven as the time goes by for me here: blog-wise.

I am Muslim, by choice, practice and vocation. Meaning, I accepted Islam as my way of life, after a loving relationship as a daughter of a Methodist Minister. I was not yet 21.  Now I am 60. The years in between have allowed me to both intra-face within my religion of choice but also to inter-face with religions worldwide and across a wide spectrum of commitments by the followers. Currently, I live in India (about which you will undoubtedly hear a great deal). 

I retired from US academia after being promoted to full Professor because it honestly did not resolve my deep spiritual and political yearnings and I did not see it moving any closer as the time went, so I tried something else.  Although I am a visiting scholar at the Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley CA., I consider that a necessary line item in certain professional settings where they just cannot imagine a woman of any intellect unless she has an institutional affiliation to verify that location.  I don’t take that too seriously but I am also grateful for the Starr King School in its dedication to the interface between scholarship, belief and social justice.

Over the past 38 years I have been the proud and sometimes purely exhausted mother to five souls. They continue to inspire me, vex me, challenge me and just about everything that goes into human relations, about which I am very pleased.  So much so, they will often be the inspiration for my blogging. It happens.  Get over it.  I am a mother and in no way apologetic about it nor limited in scope because of it.  Since 25 of those years was spent as a single parent, I can hold my own on this topic and not get side stepped by it.  In recent years, my children started having children of their own and with that a whole new chapter of ‘Being’ opened up to me, in ways that were just about as unexpected as becoming a parent in the first place.  I got Nana stories coming out of my ears, but mostly these will not be shared.  Although my children accept that I have a busy public life they are very picky about what part of that life my grandchildren can be a part of, and I am just fine with that.

As for that public life, I am engaged in the struggle for justice and reciprocity not only on behalf of Muslim women but as a Muslim woman. What started out as a faith question, entered into the realm of academia and has now transformed the way a generation of Muslim reformists think and act.  It is quite simple really. Maybe the way women experience the world has something to do with how we should envision, interact with and believe in the Sacred?  In my context, Islam, I started with the revealed text and proved that point by linguistic analysis and example.

Now some 25 years later, I can see how this inevitably led out of the hallow halls of academic rhetoric to the courtrooms, parliaments, bedrooms and boulevards.

My activism has spanned the globe and confirmed my faith in justice as integral to the Divine and affirmed only through just, living, communities of persons, no matter their faith, their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ablism, or material wealth. Thus my blogs will speak to that intersectionality in oppressions, discriminations and the insulation that results from supporting a single frame work.

Most intimately I will bring my thoughts and experiences to this blog forum as a believing Muslim woman from the US, born of slave ancestry and having traveled to more than 40 countries on behalf of gender justice in Islam. I have lived in 6 countries, including my own U.S.  I will try to offer some thoughts on current issues up for debate in the public space, but I will not limit myself to being an Op-Ed Mime. There are issues near and dear to my heart, that maybe ranks some things other than the front page of public discourse, especially as that discourse can often be as much part of the problem as it may claim to intelligently address the problem.

When the mood hits me I will critically serious and radically funny—probably NOT at the same time! I look forward to your comments and feedback, which I promise to read and on occasion might respond to, on-line, or by a more dedicated or focused blog on the same matter.  Like most people who blog, I think I have something to say.  And like most people who blog, the confirmation of that can only come if I say something that someone wants to read.  So enjoy challenging me to be relevant, realistic and revealing. I do have a little bit of social media under my scarf so if the Trolls come marching I have learned how to shut down unnecessary BS.

Now, let’s get this under way, shall we?

 amina wadud is Professor Emerita of Islamic Studies, now traveling the world over seeking  answers to the questions that move many of us through our lives.  Author of Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective and Inside the Gender Jihad, she will blog on her life journey and anything that moves her about Islam, gender and justice, especially as these intersect with the rest of the universe. 

Author: amina wadud

amina wadud is Professor Emerita of Islamic Studies, now traveling the world over seeking answers to the questions that move many of us through our lives. Author of Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective and Inside the Gender Jihad, she will blog on her life journey and anything that moves her about Islam, gender and justice, especially as these intersect with the rest of the universe. View all posts by amina wadud