The literature of esoteric exegesis among various Muslim communities is vast and extremely diverse. The Ismailis (with all their diversity and various branches) represent one piece of this extremely fascinating puzzle. There are, however, a number of misleading assumptions about Ismaili taʾwīl which has led to erroneous conclusions when studying Ismaili literature. Some of these assumptions emanate from taking from granted the particular genre of esoteric exegesis from one period and then generalising it to other periods of Ismaili history. In the following paper, drawing on specific examples of Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, al-Muʾayyad fī al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, Muḥammad al-Shahrastānī and Naṣir al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, I will demonstrate that the genre and language of taʾwīl among Ismailis has been fluid. Their methodology has evolved as well as their language. As a result, the output of this exegetical engagement with the Qurʾān among Ismailis varies significantly to the extent that if one compares an early esoteric exegetical Ismaili work with another from a later period, it might be difficult to consider both belonging to Ismailis. Elements of Neoplatonic views and later on different Sufi approaches alongside a rational perspective have all to some extent appeared in different genres of Ismaili taʾwīl. I will also be arguing that in Ismaili literature there is a common rational underpinning for these engagements alongside belief in the centrality of the guidance of Shiʿi Ismaili Imams for providing this esoteric exegesis. As such, rationality and the authoritative voice of the Ismaili Imams converge side by side in the Ismaili genres of esoteric exegesis. Both of these, commitment to rationality and the voice of Ismaili Imams, have evolved and shifted over time; as a result, we deal with sometimes diverging examples in different historical periods of Ismaili history. This paper will attempt to offer these examples and provide measures of how to tell them apart while locating them in the broader context of Ismaili esotericism.

The Qur'ān’s narrative content is seldomly addressed by feminist scholarship within the field, which is primarily concerned with the text’s prescriptive verses. When scholars do consider the stories of the Qur'ān, such as the ones attributed to Mary in sūrat Āl ʿImrān (Q 3) and Maryam (Q 19), they typically emphasize the text’s positive valuation of Mary or of maternal experiences as evidence of “gender egalitarianism” in the Qur'ān. Similar positions arguing that the Qur'ān is an inherently egalitarian text have been the subject of contentious debates and critiques by both Muslim and secular scholars alike. This essay begins with the assumption that feminist inquiries into the Qur'ān should extend beyond the binary question of whether or not the muṣḥaf is “pro-women” to include a complexity of approaches that interrogate the text’s own nuanced conceptualization of the category of gender. Thinking along with Kecia Ali, who argues that an examination of the Qur'ān’s narrative content from a literary perspective offers an important avenue to feminist thinkers, I examine the annunciation stories associated with the text’s two foundational families: Āl-Ibrāhīm and Āl-ʿImrān. The Qur'ānic leitmotif of the miraculous conception of a son to a barren wife and aging husband or to a chaste, unwed woman is rife with textual representations of gender—including barrenness (ʿ-q-m or ʿ-q-r), the fertile womb (raḥm), female old age (ʿ-j-z) and aging male bodies—that are also used rhetorically by the text to help situate the Qur'ān’s theological perspective. Using a literary-critical approach that draws primarily on the methodological recommendations of Angelika Neuwirth, I bring the Qur'ān into conversation with gender, masculinity and disability critical theories. I maintain that this dynamic approach offers a more complex understanding of the Qur'ān’s own conceptualization of gender as well as the normative assumptions that were presumably held by its original 7th century audience. I argue that the Qur'ānic narratives both assert gender binaries—in a way that would be considered problematic by contemporary feminist thinkers—and destabilize this rigid system of classification. Barrenness and its conceptual binary the fertile womb, for example, are used to rhetorically symbolize Divine Punishment and Divine Mercy, respectively. This arguably reinforces the stereotype that women are most valued for sex and reproduction. However, the text’s engagement with the concept of male aging, infertility and vulnerability disrupts stereotypes of male sexual agency and power over female bodies.

The Islamic legal tradition (or shari‘a) continues to develop and expand today through a hermeneutic mode of inquiry called ijtihad. The principles and methods subsumed under the term ijtihad enable classically trained clerics to derive from Islam’s scriptural sources a set of ethical guidelines that help Muslims confront key issues of our times—e.g., sex-reassignment surgery, investment in Bitcoins, gender asymmetries. In recent decades, anthropologists and historians have shown that this practice of knowledge is often driven by the need to answer questions and concerns coming from the laity. Indeed, many Islamic scholars mobilize the tools of ijtihad to solve the doubts or dilemma of ordinary Muslims. This paper seeks to expand our understanding of Islam and other knowledge traditions by conceptualizing ijtihad as a practice aimed not only at answering questions, but also at raising new ones. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Lebanese religious seminaries (2012–2013), I show how aspirant shari‘a scholars learn to raise, debate and formulate questions deemed relevant within the knowledge economies of Islam—i.e., questions that are informed by the Islamic tradition and, if adequately pursued, promise to enrich it. By approaching the shari‘a through the set of questions (rather than the rules or precepts) that animates it, I propose a rethinking of how religious traditions develop and the role that questions as well as other forms of problematization play in this process.