Women and Political Authority

doi:10.1017/9781009206587.014

12 - Women and Political Authority

from Part III - Asserting Agency in Socio-Political Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2025

Shahla Haeri

Edited by

Masooda Bano

Show author details

Masooda Bano: Affiliation:
University of Oxford

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Shahla Haeri analyzes how Muslim women have played significant roles as political leaders in both historical and contemporary contexts. The chapter highlights how this occurs despite selective use of a hadith to deny women political authority. Haeri presents a detailed reading of the Queen of Sheba in the Qur’an, arguing that Islam legitimizes women’s exercise of the highest levels of political authority.

Keywords

Political authority leadership Queen of Sheba Qur’an, hadith

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to Women and Islam , pp. 296 - 314

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009206587.014 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Select Bibliography

Abu El Fadl, Khaled. Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women. Oxford: Oneworld, 2001.Google Scholar

Bennett, Clinton. Muslim Women of Power: Gender, Politics and Culture in Islam. New York: Continuum, 2010.Google Scholar

Bhutto, Benazir. Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008.Google Scholar

Booth, Marilyn. Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces: Writing Feminist History through Biography in Fin-de-Siècle Egypt. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015.Google Scholar

Brinner, William M., trans. Lives of the Prophets: As Recounted by Abu Ishaq Ahmad Ibn Muhammed Ibn Ibrahim al-Thalabi. 1st ed. Leiden: Brill, 2002.Google Scholar

Brocket, Adrian, trans. The History of al-Tabari, Volume XVI: The Community Divided. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.Google Scholar

Elias, Jamal J. “Prophecy, Power and Propriety: The Encounter of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 11, no. 1 (2009): 57–74.Google Scholar

Fadel, Mohammad. “Is Historicism a Viable Strategy for Islamic Law Reform? The Case of ‘Never Shall a Folk Prosper Who Have Appointed a Woman to Rule Them’.” Islamic Law and Society 18, no. 2 (2011): 131–176.CrossRef Google Scholar

Lassner, Jacob. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.Google Scholar

Mernissi, Fatima. Hidden from History: Forgotten Queens of Islam. Trans. Mary Jo Lakeland. Abingdon: Perseus Books, 1991.Google Scholar

Pritchard, James B., ed. Solomon and Sheba. London: Phaidon Press, 1974.Google Scholar

Spellberg, Denise A. Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of Aisha bint Abi Bakr. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.Google Scholar

Stowasser, Barbara. Women in the Qur’an, Traditions, and Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.Google Scholar

Abu Ishaq Ahmad Ibn Muhammed ibn Ibrahim, al-Tha‘labi. ‘Araʾis al-majalis fi qisas al-anbiya [Lives of the Prophets]. Trans. William M. Brinner. Leiden: Brill, 2002.Google Scholar

van Doorn-Harder, Nelly. “The Indonesian Islamic Debate on a Woman President.” Sojourn 17, no. 2 (2002): 164–190.CrossRef Google Scholar

Watt, Montgomery. “The Queen of Sheba in Islamic Tradition.” In Solomon and Sheba, ed. James, B. Pritchard, 85–103. London: Phaidon Press, 1974.Google Scholar