None of the people you mentioned are Islamic scholars.
To wit:
Asma Barlas's areas of expertise include Qur'an hermeneutics, gender studies, journalism, and comparitive and international politics.
http://faculty.ithaca.edu/cv/cv_abarlas.pdf
Professor Abou El Fadl was trained in Islamic legal sciences in Egypt, Kuwait, and the United States.
http://olincenter.uchicago.edu/2002-3/cv-abou-el-fadl.doc.
Amina Wadud's involvement with Islamic studies started with her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, which included an opportunity for intensive advanced Arabic studies component at American University in Cairo,where she also took classes at Cairo University and Al-Azhar University.
http://www.has.vcu.edu/wld/faculty/wadud.html#
Leila Ahmed's 1992 book Women and Gender in Islam is often seen as the authoritative text on the subject. She is a professor at the Harvard Divinity School.
http://www.hds.harvard.edu/faculty/ahmed.html
Fatima Mernissi's first book, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Islam, is a historical study of role of the wives of Muhammad.
Other works of Mernissi include
* Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World (1992)
* Forgotten Queens of Islam
* Scheherazade Goes West
* Islam, Gender and Social Change
Mernissi is currently a lecturer at the Mohamed V University of Rabat and a research scholar at the University Institute for Scientific Research, in the same city.
http://www.mernissi.net/
Farid Esack
Farid Esack did his undergraduate studies in Islam at Jami'ah Ulum al-Islamia and graduated from Jami'ah Alimiyyah al-Islamia with a Bachelors Degree in Islamic Law & Theology. He did post-graduate research in Qur'anic Studies at Jami'ah Abu Bakr (all in Karachi) and completed a doctoral degree in Qur'anic Hermeneutics at University of Birmingham (UK). In 1994-95 he was a Research Fellow in Biblical Hermeneutics at Philosophische Theologische Hochschule, Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt am Main.
http://uk.geocities.com/faridesack/
Kecia Ali received her Ph.D. in Religion (Islamic Studies) from Duke University and has contributed articles to the anthologies Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism and Taking Back Islam: American Muslims Reclaim Their Faith. She teaches at Brandeis as a Mellon Fellow in Islamic Studies and Women’s Studies; she will be working on a book on sexual ethics and Islam.
Omid Safi
Educational Background:
* Ph.D., Graduate Program in Religion, with a concentration in Islamic Studies, Duke University.
* Dissertation: "Power and the Politics of Knowledge: Negotiating Political Ideology and Religious Orthodoxy in Saljuq Iran"
* Dissertation Advisors: Dr. Bruce Lawrence, Dr. Vincent Cornell, Dr. Carl Ernst
* M.A. History of Religions, concentration in Islamic Studies, Duke University.
* B.A. Major: Religion; Minor: Biology, Duke University.
http://classes.colgate.edu/osafi/personal.htm#Educational Background:
Fazlur Rahman studied Arabic at Punjab University, and went on to Oxford University where he wrote a dissertation on Ibn Sina. Afterwards, he began a teaching career, first at Durham University where he taught Persian and Islamic philosophy, and then at McGill University where he taught Islamic studies until 1961.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fazlur_Rahman\
I know that there are some new names there; I did say that I posted an abridged bibliography, and this is still incomplete.
Now, I may refuse to recognize Ben Carson as a physician, and decline to be treated by him; I am free to do so. But the state of Maryland, and the AMA recognize him as a licensed physician, and acclaim he has received corroborates the opinion of those entities.
You may refuse to recognize the above ladies and gentlemen as Islamic scholars, and deem them secularists. But others do- others who have convened expressly to develop and acknowledge the erudition that you fail to see.
the understanding of the Salaf, and the scholarly consensus for over a millenia because it is not in-tune with the current fancies of a handful of western-educated secularists.
Thank you for making it clear that it is safe to disregard your opinions; few people state their lack of intellectual integrity quite so plainly.
