MAKING SPACE FOR WOMEN’S TAFSIR: TURKISH FEMALE EXEGESIS, WITH COMPARATIVE REFERENCE TO INDONESIAN FEMINIST TAFSIR TRADITIONS

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Zulfikri Z., Himam M. M.

Australian Journal of Islamic Studies, vol.11, no.2, 2026 (Scopus)

Abstract

This article explores how contemporary Muslim women claim hermeneutical agency in Qur’anic exegesis by bringing Turkish female exegetes into conversation with Indonesia’s feminist tafsir tradition. Focusing on Semra Kürün Çekmegil’s Okuyucu Tefsiri and Necla Yasdıman’s Kur’ân Tahlili, we trace two distinct yet complementary strategies: a reader-friendly, narrative-rich tafsir that centres on women’s lived experiences, and a lexicographic, grammar-based engagement that quietly widens semantic possibilities. Both authors work largely within Sunni orthodox frames, but negotiate verses on creation, marriage, qiwamah and social roles in ways that soften patriarchal readings and foreground reciprocity, compassion and moral responsibility. Their projects are then situated alongside three tendencies in Indonesian feminist exegesis that emerge from pesantren activism, university-based gender studies and institutional tafsir initiatives. Taken together, these cases show that women’s Qurʾanic interpretation in Türkiye and Indonesia does not always present as explicitly feminist; rather, it often operates as a calibrated agency from within the tradition, expanding women’s authority over the text, unsettling androcentric norms and diversifying what counts as legitimate tafsir today.