(REVIEW) Is oppression central to the life of a Muslim woman? What roles do Islamophobia and white supremacy have in this misogyny? And where do the biggest threats to Muslim women’s freedom and safety really come from?

These are some of the many pertinent questions that Samia Rahman answers in her book “Muslim Women and Misogyny: Myths and Misunderstandings.” In this book, published by Hurst Publishers, the U.K.-based female Muslim scholar explores the relationships between misogyny and Muslim women’s experiences, untangling complex issues such as Muslim feminism, representation, toxic masculinity, marriage and sexuality.

Based on her own personal experience as a Muslimah of color living in the U.K., as well as from extensive interviews with both women and men from Muslim communities, Rahman debunks “lazy stereotypes” in this book that is a bold exploration of Islamophobia, patriarchy and identity by a “native informant.”

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After years of hesitation and self-doubt, Rahman, a second generation child of immigrants, says “the responsibility and pressure of doing justice to the diverse and vast experi­ences of a group subjected to the worst misogyny, Islamophobia, discrimination and marginalization of any section of society weighed heavily on me.”

She says she was being asked “to lay bare the lives of women who are among the most fetishized, scrutinized and talked-about categories of people in the world” — eventually yielding to the pressure and assuming the role of a ‘native informer’ getting out to challenge what she says are some of the most common abuses of women wrongly attributed to Islam.

These abuses, she concludes in the book, do not originate in Islam, but rather from deliberate misinterpretation of the Quran mainly by misogynist scholars. As a result, there are numerous examples of how misogynistic interpreta­tion has become part of Islamic theology. She argues that Islam, in its original form, is not only clean of any misogyny, but is actually feminist in many aspects.

“A casual examination and consideration of the historical context upholds the perspective that the original sources themselves are free from misogyny, certainly misogynistic intent,” she writes in the book. “The Quran was never supposed to be approached as a superficial legal code. Yet those who interpret the Qur’an in this manner do so to uphold their own agendas of patriarchal control and the oppression of women, or to fuel the Islamophobic fire that brands all Muslim men misogynists and all Muslim women oppressed.”

Among the many things Rahman finds repulsive is the “infantilization of women” — something that she says she encountered in her earlier study of Islamic literature, most of it produced by male scholars. She gives an example from “Counsel for Kings,” a book by Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, a celebrated 11th century religious thinker who is revered as one of the great scholars of Islam. In the book, Al-Ghazali is said to begin a chapter on women with the words, “The Apostle, God bless him, stated that the best and most blessed of women are those who are most prolific in child-bearing, fairest in countenance, and least costly in dowry.”

She says another “hadith” that has been used to justify the control and abuse of women is a narration by Usama ibn Zayd, in which it is said that the Prophet Muhammad stated, “I am not leaving behind me any tribulation that is more harmful to men than women.”

“I found it impossible to reconcile myself to these misogynistic ideas, so I sought out scholarship by female Islamic thinkers, such as Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas, Leila Ahmed, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Kecia Ali, Fatima Mernissi and Sunera Thobani. … I devoured their writings with a greedy appetite thick with gratitude, thoroughly relieved to find that the patriarchal reli­gious teachings I had been subjected to were merely manufac­tured products of dubious male minds,” Rahman writes.

She also noted: “Armed with the knowl­edge bestowed by these female scholars, I was able to confidently refuse to accept the Islamic dogma that I had been taught in my formative years, and which the likes of Al-Ghazali, (Abul Ala) Maududi, (Ashraf Ali) Thanawi and (Zakir) Naik espouse. Much of the conventional interpre­tation of the Qur’an that has remained unchanged for centuries consists of layers upon layers of accepted truth built on the interpretation of a long line of male scholars.

“Narratives steeped in patriarchy inevitably codify patriarchal definitions and under­standings of Islamic pieties and rituals. This Islam of male supremacy was not an Islam I could recognize as an indepen­dently minded critical thinker who values autonomy. Beyond the rigid and narrow conservative notions of such groups as Wahhabis, Salafis and various traditionalists, there are other Islams — more amenable to new understandings.”

In the book, she also questions the permissibility of polygamy under the correct interpretation of Islamic scriptures, some aspects of the Shariah and the wearing of the hijab among many of the practices that she says result from misapprehensions of Islamic wisdom that have been promoted throughout Islam’s 1,400 years, starting after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

“There is a negation of Muslim women in Islamic scholarship, in leadership positions and in public life,” asserts Rahman, who is a former director of the Muslim Institute in the U.K.

For Rahman and most of those interviewed for the book, misogynistic behavior and opinions are not Islamic. Therefore, she writes, it is their duty to correct men who push their un-Islamic views while claiming they are speaking an absolute Islamic truth.

“At the same time, ste­reotypical tropes are rife when it comes to the discussion of Muslim women in popular culture, while the West frequently positions itself as a savior of Muslim women,” Rahman adds in the book that she says is “about how Muslim women move beyond the tropes and the stereotypes and the oppressions and the injustice.”

Cyril Zenda is a Christian and an African journalist and writer based in Harare, Zimbabwe.