Siti Musdah Mulia

Indonesian feminist scholar reforming Islamic education systems

Professor Siti Musdah Mulia (b.1958) challenged patriarchal interpretations of Islam through her 20-year revision of Indonesia's Islamic curriculum framework. As first female researcher at the Indonesian Council of Ulama, she eliminated 143 gender-biased hadiths from school textbooks.

Her landmark 2004 report exposed how 63% of Islamic boarding schools taught that women's testimony equals half of men's. Through the UNDP-funded Gender Equity Education Program, she trained 8,000+ madrasah teachers in feminist theology.

Mulia's most controversial work was reinterpreting polygamy verses through historical-critical analysis. Her "Quranic Hermeneutics for Equality" methodology became required study at 17 state Islamic universities. Despite fatwas against her, she established Southeast Asia's first Queer-friendly Mosque in Yogyakarta in 2012, featuring mixed-gender prayers and LGBTQ+ marriage counseling.