Social, legal, and gender inequalities are not only shaped by religious traditions but are also reproduced and contested in the spaces where religion is taught. This paper explores decolonial pedagogies for teaching Islam in European-African virtual classrooms, foregrounding religion's complex role in sustaining social hierarchies while also offering ethical resources for justice and equality.
Drawing on Seedat and Nadar's (2020) feminist praxis of "holding space" between the Qurʾan and the Bible, the paper understands the classroom as a holistic decolonial space shaped by multiple, intersecting struggles. These include gendered patterns of religious authority; the continuing impact of colonial and postcolonial law; racialised ways of understanding secularism; forms of knowledge that are marginalised; and unequal opportunities for participation in digital learning spaces. A decolonial framework of reflection is used to examine how these dynamics surface in students' lived experiences and inform the interpretation of religious texts.
Integrating Islamic feminist approaches such as the tawḥīdī paradigm, tafsīr of praxis and possibility, and the concept of al-ahliyya (legal and moral capacity), the paper shows how Islam is both implicated in forms of inequality and able to generate internal critiques of gendered and legal hierarchies. A comparative rereading of Hajar/Hagar across Qurʾanic and Biblical traditions serves as a pedagogical case study, illustrating how attention to embodiment, agency, and relational ethics can disrupt patriarchal and colonial readings of scripture.
The paper argues that decolonial pedagogy does not merely analyse religion and inequality but actively intervenes in how they are reproduced within Religious Studies education.