In search of Islamic feminism

"Islamic feminism" would seem a contradiction in terms to most Americans. We are taught to think of Islam as a culture wherein social code and religious law alike force women to accept male authority and surrender to the veil. How could feminism emerge under such a code, let alone flourish? Now, traveling throughout Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as Islamic communities in the United States, acclaimed Arab Studies scholar and bestselling author Elizabeth Fernea sets out to answer that question. Fernea's dialogue with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances prompts a range of diverse and unpredictable responses, but in every country she visits, women demonstrate they are anything but passive. In Iraq, we see an 85 percent literacy rate among women; in Egypt, we see women owning their own farms; and in Jerusalem, we see women at the very forefront of peacemaking efforts. Poor or rich, educated or illiterate, these women define their own needs, solve their own problems, and determine the boundaries of their own very real, very viable feminisms.

First sentence: I PEERED OUT the window of the Lufthansa plane at glistening fields of snow, stretching away and sloping upward in the dim moonlight as far as I could see.

Year

1997

Language

English

Publisher

Doubleday

Editions

1

Pages

448

ISBN

9780385475181

Data source: Wikidata