Reclassifying moral duty as individual obligation opened religious speech to women

Evidence

Muslim jurists have made a distinction between individual obligations (farc;l al..eain) and those duties that are incumbent upon the community as a whole, but which, when fulfi led by some members of the community, then no longer oblige oth.. ers (far4 al..-kifaya) . While scholars have differed historically on whether amr bil maerii falls under the former or the latter category, the common view has been that amr bil maeril is a collective duty best undertaken by qualifi reli .. gious scholars or Muslim leaders (Cook 2000, 1 7-1 8). By departing from this older, more established position, Rida makes the conditions under which daewa and amr bil maeril can be enacted fairly open: such an interpretation, as we shall see, has opened the space for women to speak in the name of daewa, as in the women’s mosque movement I studied. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 452

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the fard al-ayn vs fard al-kifaya distinction central to this interpretive shift.