"Samara A. Cahill has produced a comprehensive study of one of the central tropes in the evolution of feminist orientalism, from the turbulent 1690's to the revolutionary 1790's, with detailed analyses drawing on a variety of discourses, both competing and complementary, from an impressive array of genres and texts."
~Martine W. Brownley, Emory University
"In Intelligent Souls, Cahill shows how an especially disturbing aspect of anti-Islamic thought—the false notion that Muslims believe women do not have souls—found purchase not only in eighteenth-century Christian theology, but also in British feminism. Troubling and important, this study is crucial reading for all who wish to understand how racism and religious bigotry informed early assertions of (European, Christian) women’s rights, and thus how the work of assembling more intersectional, inclusive feminisms can proceed".
~Laura M. Stevens, The University of Tulsa
"Theologically rich."
~Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature
"Intelligent Souls? contributes many new avenues for scholarly exploration...Cahill challenges us to understand how Islamophobia entered the proto-feminist rhetoric of the eighteenth century and, further, how it has remained a staple in Western feminism, all without excusing its presence in either period. She handles the most misogynistic of texts without endorsing them. She highlights factually inaccurate information that circulated in eighteenth-century writing, particularly regarding the Islamic faith, and arms her readers with sound analysis that corrects misconceptions about Quranic teachings without giving into the convenience of presentism. Cahill’s interventions in Intelligent Souls? are as much literary as they are historical, theological, and political, and she effortlessly passes between disciplines to produce rich and rewarding scholarship."
~Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer
"Intelligent Souls? is well written and argued and presents vignettes from hundreds of treatises and novels. Where too many plot synopses can be considered a fault in a work of literary criticism, Cahill shows how this can be done in an interesting way. At the same time, she gives readers access to obscure texts they would not otherwise read but should read if they want to understand the role of Islam in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English intellectuals’ engagement in polemics around women’s rights as human rights."
~Journal of Middle East Women's Studies
“Intelligent Souls is essential reading for anyone interested in learning how intelligence, civic personhood, and patriarchal norms were reconstituted through a bigoted fallacy about Islam… In dismantling this Eurocentric narrative, Cahill has laid the groundwork for an intersectional, anti-racist feminism in our time.”
