Amina Wadud - Early Life

Early Life

Wadud was born as Mary Teasley to an Afro-American Family in Bethesda, Maryland. Her father was a Methodist minister. She received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Pennsylvania, between 1970 and 1975. In 1972 she pronounced the shahadah, that is, accepted Islam. By 1974 she had changed her name officially to Amina Wadud, to reflect her chosen religion. She received her M.A. in Near Eastern Studies and her Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Michigan in 1988. During graduate school, she studied in Egypt, including advanced Arabic at the American University in Cairo, Qur'anic studies and tafsir (exegesis or religious interpretation) at Cairo University, and philosophy at Al-Azhar University.

Read more about this topic:  Amina Wadud

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    In early days, I tried not to give librarians any trouble, which was where I made my primary mistake. Librarians like to be given trouble; they exist for it, they are geared to it. For the location of a mislaid volume, an uncatalogued item, your good librarian has a ferret’s nose. Give her a scent and she jumps the leash, her eye bright with battle.
    Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)

    The more the development of late capitalism renders obsolete or at least suspect the real possibilities of self, self- fulfillment and actualization, the more they are emphasized as if they could spring to life through an act of will alone.
    Richard Dean Rosen (b. 1949)