Nevin Reda

I am associate professor of Muslim Studies at Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto. My research interests include the poetics and hermeneutics of Qurʾanic narrative structure, Hebrew Bible and Qurʾan, spiritually integrative approaches to the Qurʾan, Islamic feminist hermeneutics and Islamic ethical-legal theory. My publications include The al-Baqara Crescendo: Understanding the Qurʾan’ Style, Narrative, Structure and Running Themes (2017); a co-edited volume (with Yasmin Amin), Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice: Processes of Canonization, Subversion, and Change (2020); and a number of articles. I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn from the Qist theological network and its diversity of perspectives. My approach to the Qur’an is unapologetically literalist, although I understand literalism somewhat differently than approaches that equate literalism with the ma’thur exegetical traditions. While I value the efforts of exegetes both past and present, I do not think that the meaning of the Qur’an can be confined to the interpretations of the first two generations of Muslims. I find the Qur’an constantly pushes us to raise our ethical bar higher and to think in new and challenging ways. Rather than adapting the Qur’an to fit our own preconceived ideas, I think we need to fit our ideas to what we uncover in the Qur’an and to do our work diligently and authentically. I look forward to developing my own theology when it comes to queer Islamic studies and I would expect it to be significantly different from both classical Islamic perspectives, as well as contemporary colonialist hegemonic discourses.