“Confine Your Women!”: Diachronic Development of Islamic Interpretive Discourse on the Creation of Woman

What is it about?

This article explores the diachronic development of Islamic interpretive discourse on the Quranic passage conventionally understood as the creation of the primeval couple, Adam and Eve. The analyses were performed with a theoretical framework of feminist discourse analysis focusing on ten medieval Sunni commentaries from the late 9th to the 15th centuries. The study reveals that the concept of "single soul" in the Quranic verse of interest was interpreted as the first man, Adam, and the mate created from this soul as Eve, the latter being created from the former’s rib in all the Quranic commentaries examined. These elaborated exegetic suppositions on human creation were strengthened throughout the classical period of the commentary literature. Interpretive information both accumulated and transformed through three discursive stages characterised as normativisation, consolidation and expanding the concept. During this trajectory, many misogynous notions were made strengthening the patriarchal ethos of Islamic interpretive discourse on the creation of woman.

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