Re-reading Asbāb al-nuzūl of QS Al-Mujādalah (58):1 as Legitimation Basis for Women’s Voice in Islam
Keywords:
asbāb al-nuzūl, double movement hermeneutics, gender justiceAbstract
The question of women's voice in Islamic discourse remains contested, particularly as classical Qur'anic exegesis has often been shaped by patriarchal social structures that marginalize women's perspectives. This study aims to re-read the asbāb al-nuzūl (occasions of revelation) of QS Al-Mujādalah (58):1 as a theological basis for legitimating women's voice in Islamic social and religious spaces. Employing a qualitative library research design and Fazlur Rahman's double movement hermeneutics as its analytical framework, this research draws on classical asbāb al-nuzūl works by al-Wāḥidī and al-Suyūṭī alongside contemporary gender-sensitive Qur'anic scholarship. The findings reveal that the revelation's direct response to Khaulah binti Tha'labah's complaint constitutes an authoritative divine acknowledgment of women's moral agency. The first hermeneutical movement reconstructs the socio-historical context of the ẓihār practice and Khaulah's protest against pre-Islamic patriarchy; the second movement extracts the universal moral principle of justice and equality for actualization in contemporary contexts. This study contributes a concrete operationalization of double movement hermeneutics applied specifically to asbāb al-nuzūl texts, offering a transformative social tafsir paradigm that links Qur'anic ethical values to contemporary gender justice advocacy.
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