Posts under ‘Women and Sharia’

This past month, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, shocked many by issuing a ban on students and teachers wearing the niqab, or face veil, in Al-Azhar University or its adjoining schools, specifically in all female settings. Tantawi’s decision to issue this ban stemmed from an interaction that he had with a [...]

Religion doesn’t just live in sacred books or buildings. Religion lives in people. Therefore, I believe that one of the best ways to understand Islam is to get to know its people. Knowing few Muslims, I set out to find some and ask each of them a simple question: If you had only three words [...]

One of the assumptions about Islam that never seems to dissipate is that Islamic law is this rigid and incredibly harsh system that exacts punishments that are beyond what is tolerable in Western societies. Moreover, so the common discussion goes, when this law falls on women, it often means that they will be unfairly subjugated. [...]

The question of marriage outside of one’s faith is not specific to any one religion. Each religion, I am sure, encourages adherents to marry within the faith. Yet while this is true across faiths, and even cultures, Islam is often singled out in a negative light. It seems that there are many who are willing to [...]

Update – This program is now available for streaming and free download from the Inside Islam archive.
What do people know about Ayesha, the youngest wife of the Prophet Muhammad? Her age is the focus of any discussion and seems responsible for the controversy around her. Many, however, do not know the extent of her influence [...]

How does a Muslim woman really assert her rights? This seems to be an underlying question in many discussions on Islam worldwide and touches on issues of choice and self-determination. However, questions like this can never be answered in one way because of the diversity of Muslim communities that cannot be defined by one culture, [...]

The Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog recently posted video of a two-part conversation with Asra Nomani, journalist, Muslim activist, and feminist. She is also part of the upcoming documentary The Mosque In Morgantown about a Muslim community in West Virginia.
“On Faith” hosts the blog of another prominent Muslim-American voice, the founder of the Interfaith Youth [...]

Soon after religious authorities outlawed yoga earlier this year, Muslim women asked, “what next?” Irritated and outraged by their mistreatment and angered by the horrors of domestic violence, hundreds of Muslim women from around the world gathered last February in Malaysia. This global meeting marked the official launch of the Musawah movement for equal rights [...]

Sexual revolution may indeed be a developing political movement. It’s also a reminder that Islamic reform could take diverse interpretations.

A listener of our radio series with Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders critisizes the Women and Sharia program for whitewashing the real issues.

Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies Dalia Mogahed was interviewed last week by host of Interfaith Voices Maureen Fiedler. The interview “Inside the Minds of One Billion Muslims” takes a look at one product of the Muslim West Facts Project, an initiative that was featured on Inside Islam in November.

In today’s radio program “Women and Sharia” host Jean Feraca brought up a couple engaging questions that we’d like to follow-up on here on the blog. Jean introduced the show by saying:
Every year in Muslim countries throughout the world women are reported gang raped, imprisoned, mutilated, stoned to death and otherwise killed in the name [...]

In my conversation yesterday with Norhayati Kaprawi, the program manager of Sisters in Islam, a Malaysian women’s rights advocacy group, I got a feeling of déjà vu. So much of what she told me about the group’s efforts to educate and empower women about their rights reminded me of what American women went through in the sixties when we begat a social revolution just by talking with one another around our kitchen tables.

About a month ago the Here on Earth production team began working on Women and Shari’a, the topic of our next show in the series and something none of us knew much about. It’s been a fascinating process.

Many advocates of Sharia cite Islam’s “fundamental respect for women” as one of their religion’s greatest benefits. The prophet Mohammad is known for ascribing women a right to own property, receive education, and hold a job. When asked by an adherent whom he should give his greatest respect to, Mohammad said, “your mother,” then “your [...]

The podcast for the Young Muslims and New Media radio show is now up on this page. Subscribe to the Inside Islam radio series to hear our previous shows in the Inside Islam radio series and related programs produced by Here on Earth. This month’s topic is family and woman’s rights and the radio program will be on December 4th.