Feminisme Islàmic, Shaheen Sardar Ali, Ayesha Imam, Amina al-Jerrahi, Asghar Ali Engineer, Lily Zakiyah Munir, Amira Sonbol, Na’eem Jeenah, Balghis Badri, Codou Bop, Nayereh Tohidi, Margot Badran, Raheel Raza, Asra Nomani, Abdennur Prado, Ndeye Andújar Chevrollier
Islamic feminism is a Koran-centred reform movement by Muslim women with the linguistic and theological knowledge to challenge patriarchal interpretations and offer alternative readings in pursuit of women’s advancement and in refutation of Western stereotypes and Islamist orthodoxy alike. Islamic feminists are critical of women’s legal status and social positions and agree that women are placed in subordinate positions –by law and by custom– in the family, the economy, and the polity. In particular, they are critical of the content of Muslim family laws and the ways that these laws restrict women’s human rights and privilege men. And yet they vigorously disagree that Islam is implicated in this state of affairs. Their alternative argument is that Islam has been interpreted in patriarchal and often misogynistic ways over the centuries (and especially in recent decades), that Sharia law has been misunderstood and misapplied, and that both the spirit and the letter of the Koran have been distorted. Their insistence that what appears as God’s law is in fact human interpretation is an audacious challenge to contemporary orthodoxy. (…) Islamic feminism is part of what has been variously called Islamic modernism, liberalism, and reformism –a transnational effort to marginalize patriarchal, orthodox, and aggressive forms of Islamic observance and emphasize the norms of justice, peace, and equality.
Valentine M. Moghadam
Chief of Section Gender Equality and Development Section. UNESCO
TOWARDS GENDER EQUALITY IN THE ARAB/MIDDLE EAST REGION: ISLAM, CULTURE, AND FEMINIST ACTIVISM
Human Development Report Office 2004
LINKS:
The Path Towards Islamic Feminism
By Yaratullah Monturiol
Islamic feminism: what’s in a name?
By Margot Badran
Al-Ahram Weekly Online. 17 – 23 January 2002. Issue No.569
Mood Swings: Who’s afraid of Islamic Feminism?
By Margot Badran
Al-Ahram Weekly Online. 24 – 30 October 2002.Issue No. 609
The Quest For Gender Justice. Emerging Feminist Voices In Islam (pdf)
By Ziba Mir Hosseinni
Appeared In ISLAM 21, ISSUE NO. 36, May 2004
Religious Modernists and the “Woman Question”: Challenges and Complicities(pdf)
By Ziba Mir Hosseinni
From Eric Hooglund (ed.) Twenty Years of Islamic Revolution: Political and Social Transition in Iran since 1979, Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp 74-95
Muslims Women’s Rights in the Global Village: Challenges and Opportunities (word doc)
By Azizah Yahia al-Hibri
Journal of Law and Religion
Qur’anic Foundations of the Rights of Muslim Women in the Twenty Century (pdf)
By Azizah Yahia al-Hibri
Towards an Islamic feminist hermeneutic (pdf)
By Na’eem Jeenah
(University of the Witwatersrand)
Journal for Islamic Studies, Vol 21, Cape Town: Centre for Contemporary Islam, 36–70
Constructing the Notion of Male Superiority over Women in Islam (pdf)
By Dahlia Eissa
WLUML Occasional Paper No.11, November 1999
The influence of sex and gender stereotyping in the interpretation of the Qur’an and the implications for a modernist exegesis of rights
“Islamic Feminism”: Perils and Promises
by Nayereh Tohidi
Association for Middle East Women’s Studies
Mews Review. Vol. xvi Nos. 3/4 Fall 2001/Winter 2002
At the Crossroads of Islamic Feminism: Negotiating Gender Politics of Identity (pdf)
By Maliha Masood
The Fletcher School Online Journal
Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives
by Mai Yamani
Islamic Feminism? What’s in a name? Preliminary Reflections
By Omaima Abou-Bakr
Association for Middle East Women’s Studies
MEWS Review Vol. xv, No.4 & Vol. xvi No. 1 Win/Spr 2001
Islamic Feminism Finds a Different Voice
By Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
The Muslim women’s movement is discovering its roots in Islam, not in imitating Western feminists
AFSA, American Foreign Service Association
Feminist Movements in Islam
By Umm Yasmin
The Politics of Theorizing ‘Islamic Feminism’: Implications for International Feminist Movements
by Shahrzad Mojab
WLUML (Published: July 2001)
While the increasing internationalization of feminism provides new prospects for women’s solidarity throughout the world, theoretical perspectives such as identity politics, cultural relativism and postmodernism emphasize the uniqueness, particularism, and localism of each and every feminist movement
“Islamic feminism”: compromise or challenge to feminism. (word doc)
by Mehrdad Darvishpour
Dep of Sociology. Stockholm University
The War Against Feminism in the Name of the Almighty: Making Sense of Gender and Muslim Fundamentalism
By Janet Afary
WLUML (Published: February 1999)
Examination of the gender ideologies of several fundamentalist movements that, despite regional and cultural variations, exhibit a significant degree of similarity
Women in Indonesian Society: Access, Empowerment and Oportunity
INTERVIEWS:
The practice and purpose of Islamic feminism.
Interview with Dr. Aziza Y. al-Hibri
Chimes Online. 04-12-2002
student voice of one of the nation’s premier liberal arts colleges, Calvin
College in West Michigan. News, issues, and opinions from on campus.
Interview with Margot Badran on Islamic feminism.
29/05/2005: Margot Badran is a historian & a specialist of gender studies focused on the Middle East & Islamic world. She did her MA from Harvard University & DPhil from Oxford University. She acquired a diploma in Arabic and Islam from Al Azhar University, Cairo.
‘Islamic feminism means justice to women’.
Interview with Prof Margot Badran
The Milli Gazatte
Pakistan
Shaheen Ali is Professor of Law, School of Law, University of Warwick, United Kingdom. From 1984-95 she was on the faculty of Law at the University of Peshawar, Pakistan. She earned her Ph.D. in 1998 at the University of Hull, England where she also earned her LLM in 1991. In 1993, Professor Ali earned an advanced Diploma in Human Rights at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, University of Lund, Sweden. Professor Ali also possesses a Master’s in Political Science earned in 1995, University of Peshawar.
She regularly act as a consultant for a range of international bodies, including DFID, NORAD, UNICEF, UNIFEM, to name a few. She was also a member of the British Council Task Force on Gender and Development and have served on the National Commission of Inquiry on Women as well as the Prime Minister’s Consultative Committee on Women in Pakistan. She have served as Minister for Health, Population Welfare and Women’s Development in the Government of the North West Frontier Province (Pakistan) and Chair of the National Commission on the Status of Women of Pakistan. She am one of the founder members and Co-ordinator of the South Asian Research network on Gender, Law and Governance (SARN).
Professor Ali’s areas of teaching include Islamic Law, Islamic Jurisprudence, Comparative Perspectives on Gender, Law and Development, International Law of Human Rights, and Constitutional Theory. She has authored five books and more than two dozen articles as well as fifteen chapters in books. Topics include human rights, family law, alternative dispute resolution, women’s rights, ethnic minority issues in Pakistan, and gender, law and development.
Some of her most recent publications include two monographs, Gender and Human Rights in Islam and International Law: Equal Before Allah, Unequal Before Man? (2000) The Hague: Kluwer Law International pp. 358.
Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities of Pakistan Constitutional and Legal Perspectives (2002) Richmond: NIAS/Curzon Press, co-authored with J. Rehman pp. 184.
LINKS:
(Re) claiming our histories: A reflection on Women, Islam and Human Rights in Contemporary Muslim Communities
Paper for Human Rights day, 10th December 2003, Islamabad
Organized by INGAD
More British than Blair
Catalyst. 17 May 2006
Francis Beckett talks to Shaheen Ali
Islamic Feminism (audio)
Talk of the Nation, October 22, 2003.
Guests: Nayereh Tohidi, Shaheen Sardar Ali and Leila Ahmed
A Comparative study of the United nations convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, Islamic laws and the laws of Pakistan
Faculty of Law. University of PeshawarIslamabad : Royal Norwegian Embassy, Development Cooperation – NORAD, 1995
Call no: UNP 170.3/1 ACS 1995
Nigeria
Ayesha Imam is a theorist, teacher, and activist born in Nigeria. Is founding director of BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights in Nigeria and since 1992 she has been a core group member of the international solidarity network Women Living Under Muslim Laws. As part of coordinating group, she has developed programmes and comparative frameworks for the Women and Law Programme, i.e. action-research on women and laws in 26 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. As regional coordinator, respond to the training needs of action-research groups in 13 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
She received her B.S. in Sociology at the Polytechnic of North London (UK) in 1980, her M.S. in Sociology at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria (Nigeria) in 1987, and her D.Phil. in Social Anthropology at the School of African and Asian Studies, University of Sussex at Brighton (UK). In 1985, Imam was an advisor for the Strengthening Gender in Development Capacity in Africa Project, United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), Dakar, Senegal.
She won the 2002 John Humphrey Human Rights Award, together with BAOBAB, for work in protecting women’s rights under the new Sharia criminal law acts in Nigeria. Dr. Imam is the editor or co-editor of eight books dealing with various aspects of women and development in Africa and Nigeria, many of which are influential collections bringing together the writings of leading scholars of women’s studies in Africa. One such volume is Engendering African Social Sciences, edited by Ayesha Imam, Amina Mama and Fatou Sow (CODESRIA, Dakar, Senegal, 1997).
Dr. Imam has also served as the Gender Policy Advisor for the United Nations Institute for Economic Development and Planning in Senegal. Dr. Imam has published numerous journal articles, books and program reviews, including Engendering African Social Sciences and two special issues of African Development: Re-Visiting Gender I and II.
“If you’ve come to help me,
You are wasting your time – and mine.
If you come because your liberation is linked to mine,
Then let’s join hands and start working together.”
Poem Shared by Ayesha Imam at the Leadership Institute of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and Women Living Under Muslim Laws, Istambul, September 1998
LINKS:
Acceptance Speach
John Humphrey Freedom Award 2002
Montreal, December 9, 2002
Introduction to The ‘Warning Signs of Fundamentalism’ Publication
By Ayesha Imam & Nira Yuval-Davis
Fighting the Political (Ab)Use of Religion in Nigeria: BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, Allies and Others
By Ayesha Imam
Women’s reproductive and sexual rights and the offence of Zina in Muslim laws in Nigeria
In this compelling article, women’s reproductive and sexual rights within Muslim Nigeria are considered.
Working within Nigeria’s Sharia Courts
Human Rights Dialogue spoke with Ayesha Imam
Violence Against Women – Women From Muslim World And Americas
Biographical Information
Feminism in Nigeria
Hosted by the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture at Virginia Tech University
Mexico
Amina Teslima al-Jerrahi is the head (murshida) of the Halveti Jerrahi Sufi Order of Mexico City founded in 1987. Sheikha Amina has been practicing and studying the Islamic tasawwuf path of tawhid for 24 years under the guidance of various teachers of the Jerrahi Order of Istanbul, Turkey. In 1995 received the khalifat or the permission to transmit the light of this spiritual lineage as an official representative of the Order founded by Pir Nureddin al Jerrahi (Light of Faith, Surgeon of the Heart), a remarkable turkish saint who lived in the late Ottoman Empire period. Her spiritual director for 13 years, Sheikh Nur al Anwar al-Jerrahi (Lex Hixon, 1943-1995) transmitted to her his deep appreciation for the magnificence of all the sacred traditions and the non-dual core wisdom within them. In 1984 she began to study the non-dualist Advaita Vedanta tradition as well, under the direction of the late Swami Aseshananda a senior Indian monk of the Ramakrishna Order of Calcutta ——direct disciple of Sri Sarada Devi— who came to Oregon in 1955 and never returned to his homeland. On a parallel way, she continues studies on non dual wisdom now under the direction of Roshi Bernard Glassman, of the Japanese Soto Lineage.
Recently Sheikha Amina along with spiritual companions founded the Light within Light Interfaith Institute. As the regional presence of the Peacemaker Community, the Institute also promotes social action integrating spiritual practice with concrete expressions of active compassion. It has a school in which the diverse sacred traditions are presented by long time practitioners or citizens from the various religious worlds to interested persons of all descriptions. The institute is also a training center for Peacemakers offering tools which enable individuals as well as groups, to experience the peace process as personal and social transformation.
As part of her spiritual journey, she has completed pilgrimages in both traditions, in the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem as well as India.
In 1992, founded along with an orthodox Ashkenazi Rabbi (Rabii Abraham Bartfeld) and the catholic Archbishop of Mexico City the first Interfaith Council of religious leaders of Mexico. The Council offered the Code of Ethics for the Religious Associations, a document without precedent in Latin America which outlines the guiding principles for Peace among religious communities.
Born in Puerto Rico, Amina graduated from a BA in Clinical Psychology but worked as a foreign correspondent for various newspapers and TV Networks in the United States for 17 years until recently, working as news bureau chief in New York City and Mexico.
In the last decade Sheikha Amina has been representing Islam nationally and internationally in various interfaith organizations such as Religions for Peace and United Religions Initiative as well as in promoting a culture of Peace based on the appreciation of diversity at all levels.
LINKS:
Para América Latina: la actualización del Islam universal
Primer congreso mundial de musulmanes de habla hispana, Sevilla 2003
Invitación a la Unión
Sufimexico
¿Qué es el corazón para el sufismo?
Zawiya. Boletín no 44 – 11/2005
¿Cómo buscamos la paz dentro de nuestros corazones?
Sufimexico
Muerte para tiempo presente
Islam Hoy
El espacio laico
Revista Verde Islam
Los moderados del islam deben ser escuchados
Artículo a propósito de las caricaturas del Profeta (P y B)
www.sufimexico.org
Web de la comunidad Yerraji Halveti en México
www.instituto-de-lo-sagrado.org
Instituto de lo sagrado ‘Luz sobre Luz’
India
Asghar Ali Engineer was born in 1940, and took a BSc. in civil engineering from Vikram University. From 1980 he edited the journal The Islamic Perspective, and during the 1980s he published a string of books on Islam and communal violence in India, the latter based on his field investigations into the communal riots in post-independence India. By 1987 he was well enough known to receive the Distinguished Service Award from the USA International Student Assembly and the USA Indian Student Assembly. In 1990 he received the Dalmia Award for communal harmony and in 1993 was awarded an honorary D.Litt. by the University of Calcutta.
1992 saw the destruction of the Babri Mosque and provided the impetus for the foundation by Engineer in 1995 of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS), of which Engineer is still the Chairman and which has been the organisational focus of his work since then. The objectives of CSSS are to spread the spirit of communal harmony, to study problems in the area and organise inter-faith dialogues. To this end CSSS undertakes research, organises seminars, conducts training and mass awareness programs, publishes books and pamphlets and networks with other organisations. Through CSSD and otherwise Engineer has given many lectures and been involved in many workshops (some abroad, mainly in India, some for the Indian police) promoting communal understanding and harmony. He has published 47 books, many papers and articles, including those for scholarly journals. He edits a journal, Indian Journal of Secularism, and a monthly paper, Islam and Modern Age. Through the 1990s, Engineer received a number of awards, including the National Communal Harmony Award in 1997, and the USA Award from the Association for Communal Harmony in Asia in 2003.
Engineer is a Bahra Muslim, and an important component of his work has been both to promote a better external understanding of Islam and to critique some of its manifestations from the inside (for example, Rethinking Issues in Islam in 1998). His progressive interpretation of the scriptures has often brought him into headlong conflict with the orthodox clergy at a great personal risk. Post-2001 some of Engineer’s work has addressed the issues of globalisation, Islam and terrorism, but most of his work has remained focused on the communal situation in India and, to a lesser extent, its relations with Pakistan.
Contact Details:
Asghar Ali Engineer
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
9B, Himalaya Apts.,1st Floor
6th Road, TPS III, Opp. Dena Bank
Santacruz (E), Mumbai-400055
India
Mobile number: +91 9819781006
Phone: +91(0)226149668, 56987135
Fax: +91(0)2256987134
E-mail: csss@vsnl.com
Website: www.csss-isla.com
Dr Asghar Ali Engineer’s Articles:
www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~rtavakol/engineer/
http://ecumene.org/IIS/csss.htm
List of Articles:
Islamic Feminism: What does it mean?
Issues in Islamic Feminism
Islam, Women and Gender Justice
Muslim Women, Orthodoxy and Change
Women’s Rights and Personal Law Board
Can Veil be enforced?
Muslim Women and far reaching changes in Bangladesh
Women and Personal Law in Iran
Muslim women and maintenance
Muslim women’s maintenance – some new judgements
Triple Divorce – Need For Change
Muslim Women On The Move
Muhammad (PBUH) as a Liberator
Pluralism and Civil Society
Islam and Pluralism
Islam and Religious Freedom
The political universe of Islam
Islam and Social Ethics
Islam and Secularism
On developing theology of peace in Islam
On the concept of compassion in Islam
Reconstruction of Islamic thought
Meaning of Islamic Worship
A new approach for Islamic world needed
The Holy Quran and Ismaili Tawil.
On Methodology. Understanding The Quran
Twenty first century, religion and peace.
Islamic World and Crisis of Modernization
Plurality or Polarity
Muslims, Modernity and Change
Islam on the eve of the 21st century
The concept of islamic state
Islamic ethic
On absence of democracy in muslim world
Da‘wah or dialogue
Sociological approach to islam
What I Believe
About Dr. Engineer
List of Books authored by Dr. Engineer
Indonesia
Lily Zakiyah Munir is a leading Indonesian Muslim human rights activist. I s founder and director of Center for Pesantren (Islamic Boarding School) and Democracy Studies or CEPDES, an NGO dedicated to promoting democracy and human rights education amongst Muslim grassroots communities in Indonesia. She is national board member of Muslimat Nahdlatul Ulama (MNU), the women’s wing of NU, a mass-based organization with membership of about 40 million Indonesians. She is also a researcher focusing on the issues of Islam, politics and gender. Her academic background includes training as medical anthropologist at the University of Amsterdam, management at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, III., research fellow On Islam and Human Rights at Emory University Faculty of Law in Atlanta and visiting fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. She was a consultant with UNDP on Gender Mainstreaming Program with Ministry of Women’s Empowerment in Indonesia. Through Muslimat NU and CEPDES she has been involved in civic and political education for Muslim women in Indonesia in the elections of 1999 and 2004. She has written numerous articles on her focused areas for publication and for presentation in conferences worldwide.
LINKS:
Indonesian Islam And The Position Of Women (pdf)
By Lily Zakiyah Munir
Domestic Violence in Indonesia (pdf)
By Lily Zakiyah Munir
Islam, Gender, and Formal Shari’a in Indonesia (Word doc)
By Lily Zakiyah Munir
Islamic Fundamentalism and its Impact on Women (Word doc)
By Lily Zakiyah Munir
Islam, gender and equal rights for women (Word doc)
By Lily Zakiyah Munir
The Jakarta Post — Wednesday, December 10, 2002
Islam, Modernity and Justice for Women (Word doc)
By Lily Zakiyah Munir
The Koran’s Spirit of Gender Equality
By Lily Zakiyah Munir
Qantara 2003
Has sharia brought justice? (Word doc)
By Lily Zakiyah Munir
The Jakarta Post — Monday, March 17, 2003
Misunderstanding of polygamy lingers in Islam (Word doc)
By Lily Zakiyah Munir
The Jakarta Post — Saturday, May 24, 2003
Querying Polygamy Award (Word doc)
By Lily Zakiyah Munir
The Jakarta Post — Saturday, August 2, 2003
View Lily Zakiyah Munir’s Islam and Human Rights Project (Word doc)
The Islam and Human Rights Fellowship Program
INTERVIEWS:
Lily Munir on Indonesian Islamic Liberation Theology
By Yoginder Sikand
Islam, Feminism and Islamic Education in Indonesia
Lily Zakiyah
Munir interviewed by Yoginder Sikand
Egypt
Associate Professor of Islamic History, Law and Society, Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown Univiversity. Amira Sonbol has published several books and numerous articles on topics in her areas of specialization: Women and Islamic Law, Islamic Fundamentalism, Islamic Civilization, and Islam, Gender, and Social Change. Her las book is Beyond the Exotic: Women’s Histories in Islamic Societies. (American University in Cairo P, 2006). In her book Women of the Jordan: Islam, Labor and the Law (Syracuse University Press, November, 2002), examines Jordanian and Palestinian women, issues of employment, education, human rights, Islamic law, and legal practice. She is also the author of The New Mamluks: Egyptian Society and Modern Feudalism (Syracuse, 2000), and The Creation of a Medical Profession in Egypt, 1994-1922 (Syracuse, 1991). She edited Women, the Family, and Divorce Laws in Islamic History (Syracuse, 1996), and is co-editor of Journal of Islam and Muslim-Christian Relations (CARFAX). The recipient of a National Endowment of the Humanities Senior Scholar Grant through the American Research Center in Egypt, 1995-1995, Dr. Sonbol is one of two external consultants, along with Yvonne Haddad of Georgetown University, for the current NEH-funded project on “Women in Islam” for faculty members in West Virginia.
LINKS:
Women’s rights in Egypt
“The woman follows the nationality of her husband”:
guardianship, citizenship and gender (pdf)
The Modern and the Traditional: The Case of Egypt
BOOKS:
The New Mamluks. Egyptian Society and Modern Feudalism
Beyond the Exotic. Women’s Histories in Islamic Societies (2006)
Mémoires d’un souverain, par Abbas Hilmi II, Khédive d’Égypte.
1892-1914 (1996)
<h3> Pakistan</h3>
<h3>Ziauddin Sardar</h3>
Is an author, journalist and community leader. He has a history of activism in the anti-apartheid struggle, having been arrested on a few occasions – the first of which allowed him to meet Shamima Shaikh. Currently a PhD candidate, he was also a Political Studies lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He currently works for South Africa’s Freedom of Expression Institute. His research areas include: Political Islam, Islamic Jurisprudence of Minorities, Islamic Feminisms, the Middle East, Islam in South Africa, Revolutions, South African Politics, among others. Na’eem holds various positions outside academia: President of the Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa; Coordinator of Masjidul Islam in Johannesburg; steering committee member of The Other Voices; spokesperson for South Africa’s Palestine Solidarity Committee & Anti-War Coalition. He is often interviewed by media about issues related to Islam or the Muslim world, Muslims in South Africa, the Middle East, Islamic Feminisms, freedom of expression and other issues. An experienced journalist, he writes for a number of publications and reports for a network of US radio stations. He is also a newspaper columnistHe is member of the Council of the World Islamic Call Society.
<h3> Sudan</h3>
<h3>Balghis Badri</h3>
Is the Director of the Institute of Women, Gender and Development of the Ahfad University for Women. Ahfad Uiversity is outstanding in promoting women and gender studies within Sudan but also within North Eastern Africa and the Middle East. She mainly works on women’s Rights, Women and Islam and the Situation of Women in Sudan. She is in the Executive Committee of the “Babiker Badri Scientific Association”, a NGO dealing with women’s issues and paece in Sudan. She is expertise in the fields of gender and development, peace building, good governance, civil society formation, citizens’ and in particular women’s rights. She is qualified in both sociology and social anthropology, and her research and supervisory work in the cooperative project focusses on governance and peace building with special consideration of inclusion of women.
LINKS:
Feminist Perspectives in the Sudan. An analytical overview (pdf)
A paper presented on the workshop “Feminist Perspectives”, Free University Berlin,
26th-27th May 2005
By Balghis Badri
IAhfad University for Women’s experience in introducing women and Gender Studies: the challenges of the 21st century
Women in Islam: Theoretical Debates and Women’s Activism
International Summer School. September 18th to 29th, 2005
Ahfad University for Women, Umm Durman (Sudan)
Senegal
Codou Bop is a journalist and resercher about women’s rights. She is interested more specifically in sexual and reproductive rights, Islam and human rights of women, and in the traffic of human beings. She coordinates the Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes et Lois au Sénégal (Group of Research on the Women and the Laws in Senegal), an association member of the Solidarity Network of Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Codou Bop has published many articles on these questions and coordinated the following books: 1999: Women of the World: Laws Policies and affecting their reproductive life (French-speaking Africa. Center heart Reproductive Law Policy and, New York) and Our Body, Our Health, A book on health and the sexuality of women in Africa Subsaharienne (The Harmattan, Paris). She has participated as Research Program Officer with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, with the Population Council and with the Association of African women heart research Development and (AAWORD). She has been Humphrey Fellow and Fellow of the Religion and Human Rights Programs with Emory University.
LINKS:
Law Emory. Research-in-Progress.
Islam and Women’s Reproductive and Sexual Rights in Senegal
African youth makes a takeover bid
UNESCO Couirier 1999
Le mouvement des femmes africaines et la participation à la vie citoyenne
Islam And Women’s Sexual Health And Rights In Senegal
Bush-whacked
Caire à Pekin, le combat des femmes pour l’égalite
Women’s Sexuality in Senegal
Research Project run by GREFELS
(Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes et les Lois au Senegal)
Codou Bop: Francophone Africa and Beyond
Reproductive Freedom News. Worldwide
November 1998. Volume VII. Number 8
Etude sur l’acces des femmes aux ressources foncieres
et technologiques au senegal
África y el Relevo Generacional
Fecha publicación: 24/06/2004. Tomado de Argenpress.info
Après Pékin, quelle coopération internationale en Afrique? (pdf)
Integrating Gender Into World Bank Financed Transport Programs
Case Study: Senegal (pdf)
USA
Nayereh Tohidi is Professor and Chair of the Department of Women’s Studies at California State University, Northridge and a Research Associate at the Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA. She received her BS in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Tehran (with Honors) and MA and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She has been post-doctoral fellow at Harvard and Stanford universities and the recipient of a Keddie-Balzan Fellowship at UCLA, a scholarship at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center, and a Fulbright scholarship at the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Azerbaijan. She has served as consultant for UNICEF and UNDP on women and development in the Middle East and the post-Soviet Eurasia. Tohidi represented women NGOs at both the third and fourth World Conferences on Women in Nairobi (1985) and in Beijing (1995), presenting on Iranian women’s issues and concerns of women in transitional economies of post-Soviet Caucasus and Central Asia.
Professor Tohidi is frequently consulted by the media and invited to speak on women and gender issues, democracy and human rights in Islamic societies at national and international conferences and community events. In 2001, she ran a weekly radio program on “Women and Society in Iran” broadcast to Iran, Central Asia and Europe through Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Some of her writings and interviews have been translated or reprinted in many other languages and countries, including Iran, Russia, France, Austria, Azerbaijan, Britain, India, Japan, the Philippines, Spain and Brazil.
E-mail: nayereh.tohidi@csun.edu
LINKS:
Islamic Feminism: Perils and Promises
In the Middle East Women’s Studies Review, Vol. 16, No. 3&4, Fall 2001/Winter 2002.
Women at the Forefront of Democracy Movement in Iran
The International Journal of Not- for-Profit Law, Vol. 7, Issue 3, June 2005
Iran: regionalism, ethnicity and democracy
Revolution? What’s in for them? Globalized Iranian American women are nudging their homeland toward democracy
In the Los Angeles Times, July 31, 2005
Women, Civil Society, and NGOs in Post-Soviet Azarbaijan
In the International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law, Vol. 7, No. 1, Nov. 2004
No to Forced Veiling and No to Forced Unveiling: An Analisys of the French Law Banning the Headscarf
In Iranian Feminists Tribune, December 31, 2003
On Some Current Women Issues in Iran: An Interview
In Women Without Borders, April 1, 2004, Vienna, Austria (available in English and German)
In Memory of Parvin Paidar
10/26/2005 1:32:23 AM
The global-local intersection of feminism in Muslim societies:
the cases of Iran and Azerbaijan
The arguments made in this paper are based on empirical studies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as on a review …
9/22/02
Statement protesting the sentenced execution of Professor Hashem Aghajari - Iran
While we strongly oppose the threatened U.S. preemptive attack on Iraq, which is certain to amplify the existing anger and resentment of the U.S. in …
12/22/02
Protest Against Civil Rights Violations in Iran
Another grave violation of civil rights and due process of law has occurred in Iran. Seven well-known and outspoken supporters of the Iranian president, …
6/22/00
Nayereh Tohidi: PUBLICATIONS
USA
Margot Badran, a historian of the Middle East and Islamic societies and specialist in gender studies, is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. She is currently Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Religion and Preceptor at the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought at Northwestern University. She has a diploma in Arabic and Islamic religious studies at Al Azhar University in Cairo in addition to M.A. in Middle East Studies from Harvard University and a D. Phil. in Middle East history from Oxford University. She calls both the United States and Egypt home.
She has researched and written on women and feminist thought and organizing, and everyday activisms, in the Middle East and Muslim societies for over three decades. Her books include: Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt, Harem Years: The Memoirs of An Egyptian Feminist Huda Shaarawi (which she translated, edited, and introduced) and Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing (which she co-edited) and has just come out in a new and expanded edition titled Opening the Gates: An Arab Feminist Anthology.
Her writings on secular and Islamic feminisms have been translated into Arabic and several other languages. She is now finalizing a book on comparative Islamic feminisms. She also writes on feminism and gender for Al Ahram Weekly in Cairo
She is currently completing a book on comparative Islamic feminisms in Egypt, Yemen, Turkey, and South Africa.
LINKS:
Islamic Feminism: what’s in a name?
Islamic feminism is on the whole more radical than Muslims’ secular feminisms, argues Margot Badran
Al-Ahram Weekly Online. 17 – 23 January 2002. Issue No.569
Mood Swings: Who’s afraid of Islamic Feminism?
By Margot Badran
Al-Ahram Weekly Online. 24 – 30 October 2002.Issue No. 609
Islamic feminism revisited
Surveying the most recent developments in Islamic feminism, Margot Badran finds an increasingly dynamic global phenomenon that is as varied as it is …
Al-Ahram Weekly Online. 9 – 15 February 2006. Issue No. 781
The gender of Islam
Could progressive readings of Islam enhance women’s rights? In India, Margot Badran talks to Muslims who see religion as a way to emancipation.
Interview with Margot Badran on Islamic feminism
29/05/2005: Margot Badran is a historian & a specialist of gender studies focused on the Middle East & Islamic world
‘Islamic feminism means justice to women’
Interview with Prof. Margot Badran
The Milli Gazatte
Exploring Islamic Feminism
Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, November 30, 2000
Liberties of the faithful
Back from the north and middle belt of Nigeria, Margot Badran writes on current religious-political debates six years after the emergence of “Sharia states”
Al-Ahram Weekly Online. 19 – 25 May 2005. Issue No. 743
In no need of protection
Nationalist militants and determined feminists: Margot Badran and Lucia Sorbera examine the grafting of agendas
Al-Ahram Weekly – 24 – 30 July 2003. Issue No. 648
Re-opening the gates
Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing, 2nd Edition, Margot Badran & Miriam Cooke, eds., Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press
Al-Ahram Weekly – 22 – 28 December 2005. Issue No. 774
Finding Islam
What is going on in the Muslim community in post-independence Bulgaria? While participating in the Intercultural Studies Dialogue at Sofia University Margot Badran set out to discover answers
Al-Ahram Weekly Online. 20 – 26 September 2001. Issue No.552
Two heads are better then one
Margot Badran writes from Turkey on the implications of the recent reform of the 1926 Civil Code on women’s rights in marriage and divorce
Al-Ahram Weekly Online – 7 – 13 March 2002. Issue No.576
Arab women going public
Margot Badran, in her study of the Egyptian feminist movement, notes that the nationalist movement led women in Egypt to assume new roles as political …
Feminism in a Nationalist Century
Al-Ahram Weekly – 30 Dec. 1999 – 5 Jan. 2000. Issue No. 462
Canada
Raheel Raza was born in Pakistan. She graduated from Karachi University with a major in English and Psychology and has taken writing and public speaking courses in Toronto. Escritora, sus relatos, ensayos y poemas han sido publicados ampliamente en los EEUU y Canad??, siendo acreedora de varios premios. In 1994, she won an in the short story award competition held by Toronto Libraries. Recibi?? el premio CEJE a la exelecnia period??stica del a??o 2000. She is a recipient of the 2000 City of Toronto Constance Hamilton award for working towards equitable treatment of women.
In 1989 Raheel moved to Canada along with her husband and two sons. Raheel works full time for the Ontario Provincial Government and freelances as a journalist and media consultant. Freelance journalist for The Toronto Star y speaker at the Toronto Star Diversity series of lectures.
Raheel was on the Board of Directors for IMAGE (Islamic Media Awareness Group) which produced SALAM, a half hour program on Vision Television for 13 weeks. She is member of many mainstream organizations and is actively involved in Interfaith Dialogue at various levels. In a presentation to Members of Parliament and international diplomats at the House of Commons in February 1998, received a standing ovation to her 30-minute speech titled “Celebrating our Differences”. A constant presence on television, she has appeared as a regular panellist on Jane Hawtin Live, Michael Coren’s ACrossroads@, Ben Mergui Live, Vision, CTV, City TV, South Asian Newsweek as well as on CBC and CFRB radio. In November 2002, WTN (Women’s Television Network) aired a special documentary on Raheel titled “Family Dance”. She has the distinction of being the first Pakistani-Canadian woman to do the narration for a CBC documentary aired on ???Passionate Eye??? on April 20, 2005. Also works with the Board of Education on raising awareness of diversity and working towards a more inclusive curriculum; her name is included in the Community Role Models Resource Inventory developed by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.
In January 1999, co-produced a publication titled “Muslim Women and the Media” – a report and media contact list of “Muslim women professionals in the GTA”. The publication has been sent to print and electronic media as an educational tool for accessing a large section of the community. She has also produced a media handbook titled “Managing Media” for The Canadian Council of Muslim Women and conducts workshops all over Canada to help the community in dealing with media issues.
Web: Raheel Raza
India
Asra Q. Nomani was born in Bombay, India into a modern but conservative Muslim family. She came to the United State at age of four and was raised in the foothills of West Virginia. She is the author of the critically-acclaimed Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam (HarperSanFrancisco Publishers, March 2005). A former Wall Street Journal correspondent, Nomani has also written for the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Time magazine on Islam. She covered the war in Afghanistan for Salon, and her work has appeared in such magazines as Cosmo, Sports Illustrated for Women, and People.
Nomani is the author of Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love (HarperSanFrancisco, June 2003) and currently lives in Morgantown, WV with her son Shibli. There, she has become a writer-activist dedicated to reclaiming women’s rights and principles of tolerance in the Muslim world. Nomani challenged rules at her mosque in Morgantown that required women enter through a back door and pray in a secluded balcony. She is on trial at her mosque to be banished.
Nomani is the founder and creator of the Muslim Women’s Freedom Tour. On March 1, 2005, she posted on the doors of her mosque in Morgantown “99 Precepts for Opening Hearts, Minds and Doors in the Muslim World.” She was the lead organizer of the woman-led Muslim prayer in New York City on March 18, 2005. She was a visiting scholar at the Center for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. She is a volunteer at the Rape and Domestic Violence Shelter in Morgantown, WV. She is committed to seeing hearts, minds and doors open in the Muslim world as part of a wider vision for world peace.
Web: Standing Alone in Mecca by Asra Nomani
Spain, Barcelona 1967
Secretary of Islamic Council of Spain since 2002, and founder of Catalan Islamic Council in 2005. Director of the International Congress of Islamic Feminism (October 2005 and November 2006). Member of ‘The Soul of Europe’, organization for the islamo-christian dialogue linked to the European Parliament. Promoter of the Interreligious organization “Tradició i Progrés” in Catalonia (2005). Editor of the magazine ‘Verde Islam’ since 2001. Director of organization of the ‘First International Congress of Speacking Spanish Muslims’ (Seville, 2003).
Writer and poet, during four years he was director of Webislam (2001-2004), the Islamic site more visited in the environment of spanish language, where he has published more than a hundred of articles about Islamic thought and topics of actuallity.
Author of the book ‘Islam en Democracia’ (ed. Fatiha, 2006), and co-author of ‘Haikus de vuelo mágico’ (ed. Azul, 2005), and several book chapters. He is autor of the module about Islamic Feminism, included in the course about ‘Expert on Islamic Civilization’, granted by the National University of Distance Education (UNED, 2006). He has published articles in many media as ‘El País’, ‘La Vanguardia’, ‘El Periódico’, the magazines ‘Verde Islam’, ‘Encuentro Islamo-cristiano’, ‘Debats’, ‘Encuentro’, ‘Revista Zero’, ‘Revista Lambda’, ‘Al-Mughib’ and ‘Masala’.
Lecturer (Barcelona, Bruselas, Cordue, Santa Coloma, Silleda, Tarragona, Sevilla, Valencia, Manresa), he participated in the ‘Seminar of experts on Islamofobia’ led by the commissioner of the UN against the racism, Doudou Diène (Barcelona 2004, and Sevilla 2005). He has participated in numerous debates and television interviews (TV1, TV2, TV3, Antena 3, Tele 5, Channel +, Canal Sur, Barcelona BTV, Popular Television, Qatar TV) and radio (Radio Nacional, Radio 3, Catalunya Radio, Radio Iran, Latin American BBC, Radio Hospitalet, Cadena Cope, etc.).
LINKS:
Presentation on Islamic Feminism (Word doc)
First International Congress on Islamic Feminism
About the Friday Prayer Led by Amina Wadud
Women Living Under Muslims Laws
The Qur’an in the Spanish courts
The Kamal Case and freedom of Islam in Spain (Word doc)
By Abdennur Prado
Gender Jihad (Word doc)
By Abdennur Prado
Living Islam in Democracy (Word doc)
By Abdennur Prado
Spain
Ndeye Andújar Chevrollier(Barcelona 1972)
Co-fundadora y vicepresidenta de Junta Islámica Catalana desde 2005. Forma parte del consejo de redacción de www.webislam.com, primer portal islámico en lengua castellana. Es además la webmaster y directora de la página www.profesislam.com dedicada a la Enseñanza Religiosa Islámica.
Responsable de diferentes proyectos de cooperación en Africa (erradicación del cólera, interculturalidad, etc.). Trabaja activamente desde 1998 con asociaciones musulmanas para la igualdad de género y la enseñanza del Islam en la escuela pública en España. En 2005 presentó una ponencia en el I Parlamento Catalán de las religiones organizado por la asociación UNESCO de Cataluña sobre el Islam en la escuela.
Ha impartido clases de español en la Facultad de Letras de la Universidad Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (Senegal) y actualmente es profesora titular de enseñanza media en Francia. Es licenciada en Lingüística General por la Universidad de Barcelona. Además, está trabajando en el diseño del programa del curso Experto universitario en Cultura, Civilización y Religión Islámicas de la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) del que es jefa de estudios.
Ha traducido al español numerosos artículos y materiales de estudiosas feministas musulmanas (Riffat Hassan, Azizah al-Hibri, etc.). Participa a menudo en charlas y conferencias sobre el Islam en colegios e institutos. Ha publicado artículos en diferentes medios y ha participado en entrevistas (Cadena Ser, El País, Redconvoz, revista el Inmigrante, etc.).
Ha participado en la organización del I Congreso Internacional de Feminismo Islámico, convocado por Junta Islámica Catalana en Barcelona (España) en octubre de 2005 y actualmente forma parte del equipo organizador de la segunda edición.
E-mail: ndeye@webislam.com
LINKS:
El velo, ¿principio fundamental del islam?
Webislam, Mujer – 14/03/2005 0:0 | Ndeye Andújar
Tiempos para la convivencia [audio]
Entrevista a Ndeye Andújar | redconvoz.org
“Francia todavía está pagando por limpiar su conciencia colaboracionista”
Entrevista a Ndeye Andújar | webislam.com
Jóvenes musulmanes como agentes de cambio
Entrevista a Ndeye Andújar | webislam.com
http://www.webislam.org/?idt=3987
Reflexiones sobre el Congreso de Feminismo Islámico
La lapidación: una costumbre de la yahiliya abrogada por el Qur’án
I Congreso Internacional de Feminismo Islámico
Entrevista a Ndeye Andújar | cadena Ser
Du ‘jihad de genre’, la lutte contre les interprétations machistes,
homophobes ou sexistes des textes sacrés
Entrevista a Ndeye Andújar | saphirnews.com
I Congrès International du Féminisme Islamique en Espagne
¿Organizar el culto o representar a los musulmanes?
Islam y la educación en la escuela
Ponencia en el I Parlamento Catalán de las Religiones 2005
Consumirse en la inmensidad
Las nanas del extranjero
Ndeye Andújar Chevrollier(Barcelona 1972)
Co-fundadora y vicepresidenta de Junta Islámica Catalana desde 2005. Forma parte del consejo de redacción de www.webislam.com, primer portal islámico en lengua castellana. Es además la webmaster y directora de la página www.profesislam.com dedicada a la Enseñanza Religiosa Islámica.
Responsable de diferentes proyectos de cooperación en Africa (erradicación del cólera, interculturalidad, etc.). Trabaja activamente desde 1998 con asociaciones musulmanas para la igualdad de género y la enseñanza del Islam en la escuela pública en España. En 2005 presentó una ponencia en el I Parlamento Catalán de las religiones organizado por la asociación UNESCO de Cataluña sobre el Islam en la escuela.
Ha impartido clases de español en la Facultad de Letras de la Universidad Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (Senegal) y actualmente es profesora titular de enseñanza media en Francia. Es licenciada en Lingüística General por la Universidad de Barcelona. Además, está trabajando en el diseño del programa del curso Experto universitario en Cultura, Civilización y Religión Islámicas de la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) del que es jefa de estudios.
Ha traducido al español numerosos artículos y materiales de estudiosas feministas musulmanas (Riffat Hassan, Azizah al-Hibri, etc.). Participa a menudo en charlas y conferencias sobre el Islam en colegios e institutos. Ha publicado artículos en diferentes medios y ha participado en entrevistas (Cadena Ser, El País, Redconvoz, revista el Inmigrante, etc.).
Ha participado en la organización del I Congreso Internacional de Feminismo Islámico, convocado por Junta Islámica Catalana en Barcelona (España) en octubre de 2005 y actualmente forma parte del equipo organizador de la segunda edición.
E-mail: ndeye@webislam.com
LINKS:
El velo, ¿principio fundamental del islam?
Webislam, Mujer – 14/03/2005 0:0 | Ndeye Andújar
Tiempos para la convivencia [audio]
Entrevista a Ndeye Andújar | redconvoz.org
“Francia todavía está pagando por limpiar su conciencia colaboracionista”
Entrevista a Ndeye Andújar | webislam.com
Jóvenes musulmanes como agentes de cambio
Entrevista a Ndeye Andújar | webislam.com
http://www.webislam.org/?idt=3987
Reflexiones sobre el Congreso de Feminismo Islámico
La lapidación: una costumbre de la yahiliya abrogada por el Qur’án
I Congreso Internacional de Feminismo Islámico
Entrevista a Ndeye Andújar | cadena Ser
Du ‘jihad de genre’, la lutte contre les interprétations machistes,
homophobes ou sexistes des textes sacrés
Entrevista a Ndeye Andújar | saphirnews.com
I Congrès International du Féminisme Islamique en Espagne
¿Organizar el culto o representar a los musulmanes?
Islam y la educación en la escuela
Ponencia en el I Parlamento Catalán de las Religiones 2005
Consumirse en la inmensidad
Las nanas del extranjero
