Is Historicism a Viable Strategy for Islamic Law Reform? The Case of ‘Never Shall a Folk Prosper Who Have Appointed a Woman to Rule Them’

Is Historicism a Viable Strategy for Islamic Law Reform? The Case of 'Never Shall a Folk Prosper Who Have Appointed a Woman to Rule Them'

This article discusses the well-known hadith, “Never shall a folk prosper who have appointed a woman to rule them”; its textual history; and the various literary contexts in which it is used. It then suggests that using traditionalist interpretive strategies such as takhsis al-‘umum, it is possible to obtain a progressive reading of this hadith without introducing controversial theological arguments. Accordingly, I suggest that Muslim reformists should generally attempt to ground their arguments in well-recognized methods of interpretation before introducing more controversial hermeneutical/theological arguments, a method that in this case I called “progressive historicism” in contrast to the “hermeneutical historicism” I applied to the analysis of this text.