Critically analyses the variety of views on female prayer leadership from theologians and jurists since the foundational period of Islam to understand how this is interpreted today

There is a long and rich history of opinion centred on female prayer leadership in Islam that has occupied the minds of theologians and jurists alike. It includes outright prohibition, dislike, permissibility under certain conditions and, although rarely, unrestricted sanction, or even endorsement. This book discusses debates drawn from scholars of the formative period of Islam who engaged with the issue of female prayer leadership. Simonetta Calderini critically analyses their arguments, puts them into their historical context, and, for the first time, tracks down how they have informed current views on female imama (prayer leadership). In presenting the variety of opinions discussed in the past by Sunni and Shi‘i scholars, and some of the Sufis among them, the book uncovers how they are, at present, being used selectively, depending on modern agendas and biases. It also reviews the roles and types of authority of current women imams in diverse contexts spanning from Asia, Africa and Europe to America. The research offers readers the opportunity to gain nuanced answers to the question of female imama today that may lead to informed discussions and to change, if not necessarily in practices then at the very least in attitudes. This ground-breaking book interrogates the cases of women who are reported to have led prayer in the past. It then analyses the voices of current women imams, many of whom engage with those women of the past to validate their own roles in the present and so pave the way for the future.

"With expert attention and great expository clarity, Simonetta Calderini leads us into the articulations of one of the most debated and interesting themes of the current global discourse on the relationship between Islam and women's rights: that of female religious leadership and in particular of the imama of women." - Studi Magrebini (trans. by Bloomsbury Academic)

"This book is a very interesting book indeed and the topics discussed in it are very relevant to contemporary Muslims." - The Muslim World Book Review

"[Calderini] does what she set out to do in the introduction: take a sober look at the history of the uses of scripture, hadith, and the past that inform legal rulings and socio-political stances on the issue of women leading women and/or men in prayer." - Journal of Contemporary Religion

"Scholars of Islam ... will find many significant insights in this book, which will be important not only to read but to discuss and extend in further publications." - HAWWA: Journal of Women of the Middle East