There is something quite bizarre about walking into an Islamic studies lecture to hear figures of the past defined in modern terms. With ease, the figure of Rābi’ah al-’Adawiyyah is described not just as a Ṣūfī but someone who “emphasise[s] the autonomy and capacity to remain free of any male authority”; this definition is then over time translated to “a brave woman who fought against patriarchy and oppression from institutionalised orthodoxy” (a phrase I heard in a Harvard class). [1] Intuitively, one might feel a discomfort at hearing the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ described as a “feminist” simply because Islām’s denouncement of Jahili practices came to raise the status of women. Continue reading Logic as a Tool for Adab