Research
Genealogies of Progressive Islam in South Africa
This research aims to retrace the intellectual genealogy of progressive Islam in the context of South Africa, observed from a transnational perspective. The Claremont Main Road Mosque in Cape Town (CMRM) is chosen as the case study.
Founded in 1854, CMRM is a historical Capetonian mosque that, in the early 80s, became a nodal point in the transnational circulation of Muslim progressive intellectual discourses and practices. The mosque made world history on August 14th, 1994, when Muslim theologian amina wadud was invited to deliver a sermon to the Friday congregation: it was the first time in modern history for a woman to do so. The term “gender jihad”, which the mosque’s imam used in the aftermath of the event and that wadud has since adopted and popularized, is now used worldwide as an alternative to “Islamic feminism” – and yet the intellectual and historical landscape that shaped the action and the coinage of the term has received very little scholarly attention.
Taking the “amina wadud moment” as a watershed date, this project intends to retrace the intellectual development and historical circumstances that paved the way for this event; and explore the effects that the South African democratic transition and the subsequent years had on CMRM’s discourse.
The value of this project is not intended to be only theoretical: it seeks to offer insights and recommendations that can guide policymakers and civil society organizations in fostering social justice and diversity and in contrasting religious illiteracy and radicalization
Project awarded with the MSCA global fellowship 2024 ( GA 101202346 — GenPrISA)
Coordinator: Dipartimento SARAS, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
Video lectures
Aisha, la beneamata di Muhammad
Casa della Cultura di Milano, 14/11/ 2019,
con Maria Teresa Fumagalli e Beonio Brocchieri
Femminismo e Islam
Arcigay Rete Donna Transfemminista,
13/1/2021, con Vera Navarria, Rosanna Maryam Sirignano e Marisa Iannucci
A South African tafsīr of praxis:
the Claremont Main Road Mosque’s gender jihad (1994-2020)
Freiburg conversations on tafsir and transregional Islamic networks 3, 10/3/ 2021, con Karen Bauer
Publications
Monografie
Margherita Picchi, L’ombra dei Fratelli: le Sorelle Musulmane nell’Egitto contemporaneo. Lucca: La Vela, 2022.
Recensioni
Afriche e Orienti vol 26 no 1 (2023)
Sayyid Qutb, Margherita Picchi (ed.). La battaglia fra Islam e capitalismo. Venezia: Marcianum Press, 2016.
Recensioni
Articoli in rivista
“Confronting Sexual Apartheid in Mosques: The Rise of the Gender Jihad in South Africa“. Annali di Studi Religiosi (FBK) 23 (2022), pp. 195-211.
“Schiavi, mistici, banditi: breve storia dei musulmani del Capo nel Sudafrica coloniale (1652-1834)“. Protestantesimo 76 /2-3 (2021), pp. 139-164.
“Una donna tra gli shaykh: l’esegesi coranica di Bint Al-Shāti’“. Oasis XV/30 (2019), pp. 79-88.
“In puro stile maomettano: femminismi, imperialismi, Islam“. Nuova Secondaria, Giugno 2018.
“Heba Raouf Ezzat e la dimensione politica della famiglia islamica”. Studi Magrebini XVI (2018), pp. 129-156.
“Genere, modernità e politiche sociali nell’Egitto di Nasser”. Storia del Pensiero Politico 1/2018, pp. 43-62.
“Islam as the Third Way: Sayyid Qutb’s Socio-economic Thought and Nasserism“. Oriente Moderno 97/1 (2017), pp. 177-200.
“Egypt in Transition: What Future for Islamic feminism?”. Studi Magrebini, special issue on Emerging Actors in Post-Revolutionary North Africa, XIV/1 (2016), pp. 285-322.
Contributi in volume
“amina wadud”. In George Tamer (ed.), Handbook of Qur’ānic Hermeneutics, vol 5: Contemporary Qur’ānic Hermeneutics. Berlin-Boston: De Grutyer, 2025, pp. 341-360.
“Shifting Sands: Public Discourses on Sexual Violence in the South African Muslim Community”. In Samah Choudhury and Juliane Hammer (eds.), Sexual Violence in Muslim Communities: Toward Awareness and Accountability. Boston: Boston University Open Library, 2024, pp. 168-186.
“Reading Sayyid Qutb in Cape Town: Traveling Theory in (post-Apartheid) South Africa“. In Carlo De Angelo, Marco di Donato and Roberto Tottoli (eds.), Philosophy, History, and Political Thought in Islam: Essays in Memory of Prof. Massimo Campanini. Piscataway (NJ): Gorgias Press, 2024, pp. 271-310.
“Khuṭba Activism against Gender-Based Violence: The Claremont Main Road Mosque’s Community Tafsīr“. In Ayşe Almıla Akca, Mona Feise-Nasr, Leonie Stenske and Aydın Süer (eds.), Practices of Islamic Preaching: Text, Performativity, and Materiality of Islamic Religious Speech. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2024, p. 77-102.
“Muhammad Abduh and the Doctrine of Tawhid: from Theology to Politics“. In Massimo Campanini, Marco Di Donato (eds.), Islamic Political Theology. London: Lexington Books, 2021, p. 67-82.
“Muslim Marriage and Contemporary Challenges“. In Ronald Lukens-Bull, Mark Woodward (eds.), Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives. Cham: Springer, 2021, p. 1043-1063.
“Il privato è politico: relazioni di genere e diritti delle donne nel pensiero islamico contemporaneo“. In Massimo Campanini (a.c.d.), Storia del pensiero politico islamico Milano: Mondadori, 2017, p. 227-246.
“Le donne nell’Islam, fra passato e presente“. In Massimo Campanini (a.c.d.), Quale Islam? Jihadismo, radicalismo, riformismo. Milano: Editrice La Scuola, 2015, pp. 101-111.
Voci di enciclopedia
“Women and Tafsir“. In John O. Voll (ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Islamic Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Recensioni
Kenneth A. Goudie, “Reinventing Jihad: Jihad Ideology from the Conquest of Jerusalem to the End of the Ayyubids (c.492/1099-647/1249)”. Palermo Occasional Papers 1/2022, pp. 67-70.