Posted by Fatemeh in : Links ,
* Alya Alvi looks at the state of Kashmiri women.
* Malaysia’s The Star features a laudable article on rape having nothing to do with women’s attire.
* A Bosnian Serb police officer is sentenced for war crimes, among them rape of Muslim women.
* The president of the Association of Muslim Intellectuals in Italy warns against the creation of a “uniform” for Muslim women.
* The New Nation argues that Bangladeshi women need their own bank.
* A debate about polygamy in Malaysia gets heated.
* The latest show of a famous Turkish Islamic clothing company creates a splash.
* Ali Eteraz thinks about the deceptiveness of the argument “Muslim women must liberate
themselves.”
* A Saudi woman and her family face deportation from the U.S. because she has filed a domestic abuse report against her husband. May Allah protect her. Via In the Making.
* Muslim women are fired for refusing to wear uniforms that they believe are too revealing
at a Minnesota, U.S.-based company.
* Kazakhstan entertains legalizing polygamy.
* Denmark’s plans to hold a “Miss Headscarf” beauty contest for Muslim women are criticized by the country’s Islamic Faith Society.
* Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs sparks controversy by telling women what to do.
Literally: their website published a long list of dos and don’ts.
* The Khaleej Times explores a workshop for female artists at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed University.
* The New York Times profiles Malika El Aroud, a Belgian Muslim woman who claims she is a holy warrior and uses the internet to spread her message.
* Tala al Ramahi criticizes Western feminists’ inability to see past the headscarf when it comes to Muslim women.
* German regulations often put Muslim women at a heightened risk for domestic violence instead of protecting them.
* The Washington Post looks at issues Muslims face surrounding marriage in the U.S.
* Muslim women in India have the potential to bring out an education revolution, according to the president of the Delhi-based Maulana Azad Foundation in India.
* Noor Javed looks at polygamy in the west.
* Iran passes a bill that entitles female victims of road accidents to equal “blood money” as
male victims.
* A seven-year-old British Muslim girl dies of starvation. May Allah give her peace. Via Islamify.
* Iran cracks down on women’s rights activists webpages by blocking them. Via Feministing.
* A Canadian Muslim woman tells of her experience with polygamy.
* Al Arabiya’s Samar Fatany looks at the difference for what Saudi women ask for and what they get.
* ArabComment gives us some statistics on female employment in Jordan.
* Improvisations dissects a campaign led by Australian clergy against a woman teaching a course on Muslim women in literature.
* In response to a Brussels school planning to ban the headscarf, Belgian Muslims hold a protest campaign.
* Half Date gives information on a benefit drive for Muslim women.
* Shelina Zahra Janmohamed conducts her own austere wardrobe experiment to illustrate
how modesty (among other things) is defined through outward appearance.
* AlterNet explores Muslim matchmaking on the web.
Posted by Melinda in : News ,
MMW thanks bint battuta for the tip!
Why do articles mention women’s clothing when it’s not relevant? Exhibit A: an article on the status of prostitution in Afghanistan (you might recognize it from Friday links). Exhibit B: the story of an attempted kidnapping, from the arms of the child’s grandmother, in Iraq. “A” was written by Reuters and published by Al Arabiya, and “B” was in an LA Times blog, but both make the same mistake.
We’ll look first at the Afghanistan-based Reuters reporter, who can’t seem to stop judging women’s appearances. The writer interviews a few women who have turned to prostitution to support themselves. For each interviewee given more than a line in the story, the writer notes her appearance.
“I had no other way but prostitution,” says the pretty teenager, dressed in tight blue jeans with a black veil pulled loosely over her head.
Hmm. Is her clothing relevant? Is the fact she’s a “pretty teenager” relevant? Perhaps — if you’re trying to imply that women who are pretty, wear Western clothes (jeans), and only wear their veils “loosely” cannot help but succumb to the temptation of prostitution. It would be better journalism to describe the poverty and limited choices that led women to this job, not their fashion. Nasrin, another source, is described as a “stylish 24-year-old dressed in a white burqa but wearing fashionable jeans underneath.” Because that’s what women are like under their burqas: stylish and fashion-conscious. They buy “fashionable jeans” even when their prostitution is so that they can maintain their families. Hmm.
The LA Times takes a different approach. Some mentions of clothing are useful, such as in the description of the man who tried to kidnap a toddler. But others seems wholly unnecessary, like the description of the mother of the child, quoted here (emphasis mine):
“My mother was carrying my son, Humam, a year and 8 months, and was walking a bit ahead of us, a few meters as I remember,” said the veiled woman, who asked to be identified only by a traditional nickname.
Wait! We also need to know what the child’s grandmother wears:
“A vicious monster came out from nowhere to attack me,” said the 58-year-old woman wrapped in black, who did not want her name published.
Why do we need to know that the women are “veiled” and “wrapped in black”? Perhaps it’s to imply weakness, leading to the attack. Perhaps it’s linked to the fact neither woman gave her name, equating veils and black clothes to lack of identity.
Description can be useful in news articles. It can serve to give a more thorough understanding of a person’s personality. These descriptions of clothing, though, aren’t accompanied by any other details — no facial expressions, unconscious habits, tone of voice. And rightly so: These aren’t profiles. Unnecessary details reveal a lot — not about the people the journalists wish to describe, but about their own judgments of these women.
Posted by Melinda in : Books/Magazines ,
In 2007, hairdresser Deborah Rodriguez published a memoir of her experience in Afghanistan. Despite the cringe-inducing subtitle — An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil — the book itself, Kabul Beauty School, isn’t bad. (Interestingly, the book goes by a different subtitle in the U.K., The Art of Friendship and Freedom.)
Rodriguez is moved to travel to Afghanistan and help when she hears about the war and suffering of women. She has a second motive: to get away from her abusive husband. Surrounded by nurses and physicians, she soon begins to feel useless. A hairdresser, she has no extensive training for dealing with disasters. But skilled hairdressers, it turns out, are short in supply and greatly in demand. Rodriguez is greeted with excitement by Westerners and Afghans alike. (The book is rather stereotypical, not surprisingly, in its definition of femininity — nails, makeup, hair-dye — but even some men wish to get their hair cut.) Noting the lack, Rodriguez helps establish a school for training future hairdressers. Throughout the process, Rodriguez familiarizes herself with Afghan culture and customs and creates a new life for herself.
Rodriguez doesn’t turn to an East-West binary. She makes friends and finds an Afghan husband (in an arranged marriage). While the power men hold over the lives of some of the women she meets is more extreme than legally possible in the United States, Rodriguez can relate. She herself faced an abusive husband, and this background, which she retells, makes it easy for her and the reader to understand the women she meets. She shows the hardships they face with otherizing them — painting a respectful portrait of their emotional strength and endurance. She says, “I’ve been blessed with family, and I’m rich—especially rich—in sisters. I sometimes wonder if I’ve done as much for them as they’ve done for me” (269). She resists the tendency to conform Afghan women to American standards in an effort to help them. She notes that helping Afghan women is not as straightforward as Westerners think: “It takes a long time to understand how the complexities of these women’s lives differ from the complexities of ours. Sometimes she can’t help, even when understand these complexities” (259).
Despite the political context of the situation — an American woman in Afghanistan at the start of an American-led “War on Terror” — the book is free of politics. Rodriguez takes no sides. There is a mention of the war in Iraq, but only because it relates to the delayed shipping of supplies to Afghanistan. Focusing on the lives of women, the book leaves political discourse for other books to take on. It’s fortunate, because comments like this — “I still wonder if that videotape will show up on Aljazeera television someday, as evidence that American hairdressers are torturing Afghan men” — make me think Rodriguez wouldn’t be the best person to analyze the political backdrop.
Similarly, Rodriguez does not spend much time on religion. She notes Islamic practices and her Christian faith when they come up, but they are not a large part of the book. She never colors Islam as the source of all problems, but some comments are questionable. She writes, “Even though Roshanna’s parents weren’t deeply conservative Muslims, they wanted to see their country return to normal, and the Taliban seemed determined to make this happen.” Is being a “deeply conservative Muslim” equivalent to supporting the Taliban? That’s troubling.
The writing is straightforward and readable, although somewhat disjointed and not terribly sophisticated. At 270 pages, it’s easy to read in a day or two. Overall, it’s an worthwhile read, portraying Afghan women from a rare angle.
Note: The story may not be all it appears to be; see criticism here.
Posted by Fatemeh in : Cinema ,
This was written by Emrah Güler and was originally published at the Turkish Daily News.
In light of celebrating Mother’s Day last Sunday and the Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival continuing in Ankara this week, we take a brief look at women in the history of Turkish cinema.
We look at how women were played by men in the beginning of this century, how the sacred mother was one of the stereotypical images of women in Turkish cinema for decades, the stars and the actresses, and how we see women in cinema now.
When we say mothers were played by men, what we mean is that during the brief period of time when the Ottoman Empire was collapsing and the Turkish Republic was about to be established, the emerging form of art and entertainment that was cinema met with a major obstacle with regard to female characters. The Ottoman regime didn’t allow Muslim women to be part of this new sacrilegious entertainment form. For a decade leading to 1920s, female characters were portrayed by men for a short period of time, and later by non-Muslim women, mostly Armenian or Russian. The first woman who dared to kiss the opposite sex on screen was a minority, Madam Kalitea.
Afife Jale was the first Turkish/Muslim woman to act on stage in 1920. This paved the way for other Turkish women to pursue acting either on stage or on screen. The prolific period of director Muhsin Ertuğrul between 1923 and 1939 (he single-handedly introduced cinema to Turkish masses by being the only director with 29 movies in that period), he introduced actresses to Turkish cinema. Among these women were Feriha Tevfik, the first Miss Turkey after a beauty contest initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey; Semiha Berksoy, an opera singer who played and sang in the first sound movie; and İsmet Sırrı, who was the first actress in Turkey’s very first box office success, Ankara Postası (The Ankara Post).
The first Turkish star
Turkey’s very first star was Cahide Sonku (pictured), often compared to Hollywood stars like Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman. Sonku became a legend in the 1930s with her onscreen persona of the beautiful heartbreaker coupled with her off-screen image as the irresistible woman whose shoes were used as wine glasses. She became the ultimate movie icon of her period. She was also the first female screenwriter and director with Vatan ve Namık Kemal (Namık Kemal and the Motherland), and the first actress to play the first female protagonist living in rural Anatolia with Bataklı Damın Kızı Aysel.
The next decades confined women to one-dimensional roles where women were either good or bad. The sacrificing mother, untouched virgin, femme fatale, the seductress were some of the stereotypes Turkish cinema got a load of during that period. When movies wandered into rural Turkey, honor and virtue became the driving forces to put women into their places. If a woman lost her “purity,” she was either killed or found herself in a brothel.
Until the 1970s, actresses were typecast for these one-dimensional roles. Neriman Köksal was the blond femme fatale and the home-breaker, Hülya Koçyiğit was the heroine of the tragic love stories, Muhterem Nur was the weak woman doomed to despair, Belgin Doruk was the bourgeois sweetheart, Fatma Girik was the tough street girl, and Filiz Akın was the naive romantic with her blond European look.
Desired by men, respected by women
Türkan Şoray was one name that stood out among these actresses, cementing her name as the legend of Turkish cinema. With her slightly parted lips, and huge eyes, she soon became “the woman everyone wanted to fall in love with.” She tried different roles, while maintaining her dignity despite risky roles. She even directed four films in the 1970s and 1980s, including the classic Yılanı Öldürseler.
It was Müjde Ar, in the 1980s, who connected the split halves of women, playing multi-dimensional women who were in charge of their sexuality. She didn’t fear nudity, but refrained from being objectified. Men desired her, women respected her. Teyzem (My Aunt), Adı Vasfiye (Her Name is Vasfiye), Aaahh Belinda!.., Kupa Kızı (The Queen of Hearts) and Fahriye Abla were some of the famous films that showed Ar in a selection of diverse roles,
focusing on desires and frustrations of women from different backgrounds and social classes.
The last two decades saw a plethora of professional actresses who portrayed distinctive female characters, among whom are Hülya Avşar, Lale Mansur, Hande Ataizi (pictured) and Başak Köklükaya. Having broken free from the jailhouse of stereotypes, Turkish cinema finally gave women their own voices, in a rich spectrum of different and unique tones.
Posted by Safiya Outlines in : Television ,
This was written by Safiya, and originally published at Outlines. You can see earlier reviews of this show here.
This week’s episode is in Cairo. Presenter Amani Zain is quick to paint it as a party town from her experiences there as a student.
Zain gives a good insight into dress in Cairo, explaining that while wearing the hijab is becoming increasingly common, many women do not wear the hijab. Those that do wear it, often experiment with many different styles and colours, so there aren’t that many ‘women in black’.
Further on the hijab tip, we meet a female factory owner who makes hijabs. She happily explains that as a Muslim women she feels her religion doesn’t just permit her work, it helps her to work and make her own money, by viewing it as a form of worship.
Zain mentions that the veil has become popular in Egypt, not just as a religious act, but as a political statement against the avowedly secular government (Hmm). Egypt’s increasing religiosity is again mentioned in regards to it’s film industry. Egypt’s films were once as raunchy as their western counterparts, but Zain laments that increased censorship has made them ‘bland’. Any viewers vaguely paying attention at this point may have noticed a not very well hidden agenda begin to emerge. More about this later.
Zain says that she herself would have liked to have become an actress, but that her culture and family would not allow. She speaks to two different women outside of a cinema. The first states that there should be more hijab-wearing women in Egyptian films, as many Egyptian women wear the hijab. The other women disagrees, stating she doesn’t like the hijab and most people who wear it are forced to do so by male relatives. This is a rarely expressed view, narrates Zain.
Now for the issue of plastic surgery, with the frankly ludicrous claim that up to 20% of Cairenes have had some form of cosmetic surgery. Not even in any U.S city would such a figure be accurate. The plastic surgeon interviewed is female. She makes the rather dubious statement that cosmetic surgery is a gift from God and to not use this gift would be sinful.
More statistics with the statement that most married Egyptian women have had FGM. Zain does point out that there have been fatwas and campaigns against this practice.
Next, we saw Zain watching Heba Kotb’s show, in which the sexologist dispenses Islamically orientated advice in a frank manner. Zain is displeased when Kotb advises against masturbation, describing this as “reactionary”, not mentioning that masturbation is indeed considered to be widely disliked under Islamic rulings (opinions vary considering the circumstances).
Meeting with Kotb however, Zain describes her as the first person to realise that there are references sexual etiquette in the Qur’an and Sunnah. This isn’t actually true, at all. Zain asks if Kotb feels such blunt discussion of sexual matters in compatible with Islam? Kotb explains that to be sexually considerate is in the Qur’an and Sunnah that she hopes to strengthen marriages through her advice.
Next, Cairo’s party scene complete with alcohol is shown as the norm for many Egyptian women and Khaleji’s who want to ‘let their hair down’. This is not Islamic behaviour and while I know there are women who are Muslim that do this, a lot of us don’t and would consider it sinful and resent the idea that we’re all longing to ‘party western style’.
As seems to be obligatory for this series, there is some hair removal. A minor fuss occurs as the woman are unhappy to show their faces due to Zain showing her legs on film. Zain seems genuinely astounded that the women would react like this, stating that it’s an example of the tightrope Muslim women walk. Again, I have problems with this idea that Muslim women are perpetually conflicted souls, especially in this programme which has just interviewed three women who feel completely at ease with their lives and their religion.
An Egyptian wedding is shown, which while typical, is actually about as Islamic as a pork chop (alcohol, belly dancing, lavish expenditure).
We are told that Egyptian women are not as free as their western counterparts (remember that hidden agenda I mentioned before) and that this desire for freedom coupled with a rise in religious observance not only creates hypocrisy, but a future clash of ideals.
Yes, “clash,” that quintessential verb that must be used whenever Islam and Muslims are discussed in a modern context.
Let’s look at things from a different perspective. People have been being Muslim for quite some time now, over 1400 years. They have neither faded into obsolescence, nor remained frozen in time. Empires have risen and fallen, wars have been fought, natural disasters endured and Muslims have remained.
As for Egypt, why is assumed that the modernity they seek is the right to ape western social habits? What was glossed over by the programme and it’s relentless focus on the upper class, is that a lot of Egyptians live in poverty. Illiteracy is high, poor housing widespread and the government manages to be both corrupt and draconian. Rising food prices have even lead to national strikes.
By repeating the lie that “They just hate/envy our freedom”, this programme isn’t unveiling anything. Instead it is just reinforcing familiar prejudices.
Posted by Guest Contributor in : Books/Magazines ,
This was written by Sakina and originally appeared at Ruined by Reading.
The Veil And The Male Elite by Fatima Mernissi is probably worth reading even if you don’t agree with it, and it should only take you 2-4 hours to get through. I don’t agree with a lot of what she says, and I really, really don’t agree with many of her interpretations and ideologies. This really isn’t a book for non-Muslims, unless you know know your way around Islam and Islamic history.
Let’s jump into the criticisms, shall we?
The first issue I have is with Mernissi’s definition of a Muslim, which is one who lives under a theocratic (Islamic) government. There’s no room for personal choice, and this is the kind of attitude I’ve seen in some African and Arab authors before: we’re the real Muslims, you’re not. If you live in a democracy, you’re not real, and you don’t really know what it’s like to be a Muslim. She also comes off as thinking that even those who aren’t Muslim, or are non-practicing, are still Muslim. This also irks me to no end. I really can’t stand people who were raised in a “Muslim culture” with a Muslim family, and who give up Islam completely, yet still like to call themselves Muslims in academic circles. I guess it makes their criticism seem more scandalous. Either way, it’s old. I mean, who would consider someone like Wafa Sultan a Muslim? I’ve seen it done, though.
I also take issue with her use of the word bid’a. She doesn’t seem to use it correctly, and seems to label everything “wrong” as bid’a. Bid’a is innovation, right? Right. But she makes the statement that individuality is bid’a. How? There are also other things she claims as being bid’a, just because it’s wrong or disliked, though it doesn’t really meet the definition of innovation. (Yes, I’m nit-picking.)
One thing that caught my eye was her citation of the Moroccan Code of Personal Status, which states that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, where procreation should be done as steadily as possible, under the direction of the husband. My jaw dropped, but I don’t know why I was surprised.
She first tackles the hadith from Bukhari: Those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never know prosperity. She makes a case as to why this is so totally not reliable, and it’s not the first time I’ve heard the argument. I’ve heard it from a very educated Saudi woman who was earning her Ph.D studying hadith sciences at a prestigious university in Saudi Arabia. She was a conservative niqabi, and not a liberal feminist by any means. The argument is that since the hadith was related by Abu Bakr, it should be disregarded. Especially since it seems to go against Aisha’s entire life in politics, and the attitude of Muhammad. Why is Abu Bakr unreliable? Because he was flogged for lying by Umar ibn al-Khattab, and Malik ibn Anas said that hadiths related by known liars, whether they lied about other hadith or lied in their daily lives, should be ignored. This is hardly a revolutionary idea, as she scholars in the past have hotly contested the hadith. However, knowing that Bukhari was very strict in what he accepted, I think it best to further research it and look at what actual scholars have said instead of Mernissi. In fact, that should be the approach to the entire book. It raises questions for further research, but should not be taken as the final word.
Another narrator that was questioned was Abu Hurayra. Abu Hurayra means “father of a little female cat”, and was a nickname given by Muhammad, but apparently he remarked once that, no, it was Abu Hirr (father of a little male cat) because men are better than women. Real classy (if it’s even true). On many, many occasions Aisha corrected him on hadith, and he confessed to lying about hearing something directly from Muhammad at one point. Aisha said, “He’s not a good listener, and when he is asked a question, he gives wrong answers.” That whole hadith about women being one of the three things which bring bad luck? Reported by him, and corrected by Aisha. Muhammad said the Jews believed three things brought bad luck, one of them being women. Abu Hurayra came in in the middle of his sentence. Unfortunately, the Bukhari collection only contains that one, inaccurate hadith, and not Aisha’s correction or other variations of it. Interesting.
I really, really love how she says that Malik ibn Anas said that we have the right to question narration. I can’t stand the mentality that it should never be questioned, and to do so is akin to blasphemy. It is blind faith, and I despise it.
Her second, and final section is about hijab. When I skimmed the first chapter I could tell I was going to hate it. I absolutely believe hijab is obligatory (even though I can’t wear it all the time, go figure), and no amount of wiggling around historical “evidence” can change my mind. She seemed to be gearing up to blame hijab on absolutely everything wrong in the Eastern world. It’s really nothing to comment on because I see the proofs as being weak, old, tired, and nothing we haven’t heard before. She also makes a case for democracy, which as much as I love, I can’t stand the idea that a Western invention is superior to laws outlined by God himself. But what do I know?
On the plus side, the book was definitely interesting and easy to get through. In my experience, a lot of books on anything Islamic isn’t very user friendly. There’s no doubt she’s an educated woman, it’s just matter of what exactly she’s educated and qualified to speak on, and I don’t think she’s the one to be the final word on any of the matters raised in the book.
Posted by Fatemeh in : Links ,
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Ha Ana Za! looks at the survival and growth of Islamic feminism.
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South Africa’s The Times speaks with Fatima Hassam, who is fighting for inheritance rights for multiple wives.
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The U.S.’s Condoleezza Rice initiates the “One Woman Initiative,” which is a fund that aims to empower Muslim women around the world through funding education and business developments.
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The Independent’s Deborah Orr talks about life for women in Kabul, Afghanistan.
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None of the 27 women who ran in the Kuwaiti parliamentary elections were voted in.
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Ziya Meral for the Turkish Daily News observes how men call the shots when it comes to women’s clothing in both Iran and Turkey.
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H&M plans to open a women-only departments store in Saudi Arabia, which aims to bring more Saudi women into the workforce (and, uh, make a lot of money).
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The UN Population Fund says that Yemen needs thousands more midwives in order for Yemeni women to attain universal access to skilled care at birth.
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Al Arabiya focuses on Afghan women who turn to prostitution to feed themselves.
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A maid whose sponsors abused her and amputated her fingers and toes receives paltry compensation in court. May Allah grant her justice.
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The family of a rape survivor will not take her back due to social stigma surrounding rape. May Allah protect her.
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Ireland’s school districts examine the inclusion of a headscarf in school dress code.
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A local Saudi Arabian NGO announces a new program to aid women in finding employment, which a special emphasis on divorcees and widows.
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The Columbia Spectator profiles graduate Khadijah Abdul-Nabi.
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AKI uses a Saudi-style niqab to illustrate a story about Amnesty International urging Iran to overturn convictions of women’s rights activists. Idiots!
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Saudi mothers push to get more parents to read to their children.
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Arab News’ Abeer Mishkas tells Saudi women that they can learn from Kuwaiti elections.
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The BBC examines the proposed ban on judges wearing religious symbols (including headscarves) in Denmark.
- A woman’s jealous cousin stabs her to death on her wedding day. May Allah grant her peace and justice.
- Asian News looks at Sisterhood, the collaborative mix tape presented by Muslim women. We gave our two cents on it last week.
Posted by Fatemeh in : News, Web ,
The BBC has a slide show that examines the Western Saharah independence on its 35th anniversary.
The slide show is an interesting one, but troublesomely without context: we have no idea when these pictures are taken or by whom.
Anyway, the real point of this post. The picture below (like all the others) appeared with a caption that has nothing to do with it (them):
The caption reads: “Since then there has been a ceasefire in the mineral-rich former Spanish colony. A whole generation of Saharans has grown up in this limbo.”
Is this a Saharawi who’s grown up in “limbo”? Which part of the disputed territory is she from? What are her perspectives on her country’s condition and future?
We have the same problem here: “With years of negotiations having made little progress, many Saharawis remain uncertain about their future.”
Are these women soldiers? Outlaws? Matching dressers? What? I mean, do these women feel uncertain about their future? Did their views about their future govern their decision to decide the organization that they’re in (that presumably furnished them with these snappy outfits)?
It doesn’t matter, because these women, like all the other Saharawis in this slide show, are merely “exotic” wall paper to illustrate the viewer’s shallow educational journey about the fight for Western Sahara.
Posted by Melinda in : Music/Radio, Politics ,
A few days ago, I caught an Intelligence Squared U.S. debate on the radio. The series evaluates a claim through Oxford-style debate. The resolution was “Islam is dominated by radicals.” The wording of the issue is flawed, as participant Reza Aslan (against) pointed out in his opening 
speech, and the supporting team’s attempts to clarify the intent of the resolution led to inconsistent interpretation on both sides of the debate.
Nevertheless, the debate was commendable in its choice of participants. For an issue about Islam, both sides included Muslims — more notably, Muslim women.
Asra Nomani argued on the “for” side, and Edina Levovik, with Aslan, represented the Muslim voice on “against.” The debate also included the opinions of non-Muslims: two top figures in conservative think tanks (for) and a Columbia University history professor with an emphasis in Muslim countries (against).
It’s important that Muslim women’s voices be a part of all discussions of Islam. This resolution did not focus on women, so it was surprising (but refreshing) to see women comprising the majority of the Muslim debaters. This sends the message that women are an engaged part of Islam, not passive victims. Because Muslim women were shown on both sides of the debate, it’s clear that that within that community, there’s a diversity of opinions.
The live debate was held April 15. You can read more about it, see profiles of the debaters, and listen to the full debate here.
Posted by Fatemeh in : News ,
Written by Ebtihal Mubarak, originally published on Arab News.
JEDDAH, 19 May 2008 — For 25 days supporters and friends of Saudi blogger Hadeel Alhodaif have waited anxiously, hoping that she would emerge from the coma she fell into unexpectedly. But on Friday these hopes died as the 25-year-old writer and social critic — known for fearlessly using her real name in her criticisms — passed away.
Alhodaif (pictured here in the center at a seminar in Muscat, Oman), who maintained Heaven’s Steps, often challenged other Saudi women to join her in stepping out of the shadows of anonymity and devote their writing to issues of social importance.
“I wish that Saudi women bloggers would step forward in their writing instead of simply writing their personal diaries,” she told Arab News in an interview last year. She said that blogging offered a unique opportunity in Saudi Arabia to create a “new free media” to face off against the entrenched establishment newspapers and television channels and give the public what they really wanted to know. In some cases she would appear in these media outlets, such as AlJazeera and Saudi Channel One.
Alhodaif was invited last year to Oman’s Sultan Qaboos University to discuss the role that Saudi blogs play in promoting the freedom of expression. Later that year she gave a lecture at the women’s section of the Riyadh Literary Club calling on women to start their own blogs to help influence public policy and opinion.
“I would like to educate Saudi women about the importance of blogging as an efficient medium that can greatly influence public opinion,” she said during her presentation.
When blogger Fouad Al-Farhan was detained late last year for openly defending a group of conservative academics that had been arrested for meeting and discussing the need for political reform, Alhodaif was the only Saudi woman who came out publicly calling for Al-Farhan’s immediate release. She started a “Free Fouad” website and created a forum on the social networking site Facebook to keep interested people up to date on the case.
“She was truly courageous speaking to the BBC Arabic eloquently and bravely about Al-Farhan’s detention when most Saudi bloggers wanted only to be quoted anonymously,” said a fellow blogger, who preferred to be quoted anonymously.
Al-Farhan was released last month after four months of detention without charges.
Alhodaif published a collection of short stories titled Their Shadows Don’t Follow Them.
Last year her play “Who Fears The Doors” was performed at the men’s section of King Saud University. In her blog Alhodaif mocked the fact that even as the playwright she was not allowed to attend the performance of her own work due to the university’s strict policy on the mingling of the sexes.
“I guess I have to beg the male audience to inform me how my play was produced,” she wrote in Arabic. “I hope that a day comes when I can attend a cultural function where the presence of women does not cause anyone an allergic reaction!”
Alhodaif’s Facebook profile shows a young woman who was interested in reading, writing and good food. Saudis from all ages and backgrounds — liberals and conservatives alike, those who knew her closely or from a distance, and even those who did not know her at all before — are mourning the bright skinny girl with high dreams and hopes of a better future for all Saudis.
Editor’s Note: Why is important to note that she’s skinny?
May Allah give her peace.
