Reconstructing Women’s Scholarly Authority in Digital Islamic Education: An Islamic Gender Perspective

Abstract

This study examines the construction and legitimating bases of women’s scholarly authority in Islamic education, identifies changes in knowledge production, transmission, and legitimation in digital ecosystems, and reconstructs women’s scholarly authority through an Islamic gender perspective. This qualitative library research draws on the Qur’an, hadith, Qur’anic exegesis, works of Muslim thinkers, historical literature on women’s intellectual traditions, and studies on Islamic education, Islamic gender, female ulama, epistemic authority, and digital authority. The data were examined through content analysis using data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification, with source triangulation across normative, historical, theoretical, and contemporary studies. The relationship among scholarly competence, knowledge transmission and production, and epistemic recognition shapes women's scholarly authority. The study identifies a recognition gap between women's expanding epistemic participation and the legitimacy accorded to them. Women's positions can be mapped along a non-linear spectrum from knowledge seeker, knowledge transmitter, and knowledge producer to recognised epistemic authority. Digitalisation expands access and visibility but does not automatically generate epistemic equality, because platform gatekeeping, institutional legitimacy, networks, audience responses, and gender-based epistemic barriers continue to influence recognition. As a library-based study, the reconstruction has not yet been tested in empirical settings; subsequent research should examine it in Islamic educational institutions, female ulama networks, and digital religious communities. The study shifts the analytical focus from access to knowledge to authority over knowledge by positioning epistemic recognition as the bridging mechanism between intellectual contribution and recognised authority.