The word ummah comes from the same root as the word for mother, umm, in Arabic… It’s about intimate connections. But it is never used for family nor even for extended family. It is only used for a collective.
Amina Wadud
Amina Wadud is an internationally known scholar on Islam and gender. She has lived in five different countries and traveled to more than 40 countries as a consultant on Islam, Human Rights, and Women. Dr. Wadud is Professor Emeritus of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA and visiting scholar at Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley, California. She is the author of Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective, (Oxford, 1999) and, most recently, of Inside the Gender Jihad: Reform in Islam (OneWorld, 2006).
