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The Myth Of “Sharia” And Child Marriage, Megan S. Luckenbaugh

What All Americans Should Know About Women in the Muslim World

In American media, the term "sharia law" is repetitively used as a reason behind practices and actions linked to Islam which would be considered counter to Western morals. The term "sharia" is first clarified as having many definitions, but in legal terms each Islamic nation has their own version of "sharia." Child marriage is one of many topics often blamed on "sharia" and this essay attempts to debunk the Western portrayal of "sharia" by exploring the reality of child marriage in some Islamic nations. The examples depict both situations in which the people, despite the laws, are actively keeping this …

Framing Feminine Identity: Exploring Ways Of Being A Woman, Through The Practice Of Faith, And Ideas Of Equality And Justice Through Narratives Of South African Muslim Women Activists, Rachel Anderson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

What began as an attempt to explore Islamic Feminism through the life narratives of Muslim women, actually enabled a journey into exploring ways of being a woman, through the practice of faith, and ideas of justice and equality. Through multiple in-depth interviews and conversations, a visit to the mosque for Friday prayer, and a night at a theatrical production in the Muslim community, I spent time with influential Muslim women activists in the Durban community of South Africa listening, learning and reflecting.

What I found was less concrete than labeling these women as ‘Islamic Feminists’ but it was also more …

Ilhan, Nura, Radwa, Ziagull And Children, Ilhan, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Ilhan, his wife Nura, and their children resided near Kabul, in a region where both the Taliban and ISIS were active. As Shias, Ilhan’s family faced numerous menaces, including threats from ISIS that they would be beheaded if they did not display ISIS flags. Ilhan’s sister Radwa, who is deaf and mute, was forced to marry a regional leader. In addition to being threatened on religious grounds, Ilhan’s family was also threatened by an elder of their town. Out of desperation, Ilhan’s family sold their house appliances, escaped Afghanistan, and arrived at the …

Bodies And Contexts: An Investigation Into A Postmodern Feminist Reading Of Averroës, Reed Taylor

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In this article, I contribute to the wider discourse of theorizing feminism in predominantly Muslim societies by analyzing the role of women’s political agency within the writings of the twelfth-century Islamic philosopher Averroës (Ibn Rushd, 1126–1198). I critically analyze Catarina Belo’s (2009) liberal feminist approach to political agency in Averroës by adopting a postmodern reading of Averroës’s commentary on Plato’s Republic. A postmodern feminist reading of Averroes’s political thought emphasizes contingencies and contextualization rather than employing a literal reading of the historical works.

Fawad And Zakeela, Fawad, Zakeela, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Fawad and his wife, Zakeela, have three children. Zakeela was a beautician, and Fawad was a singer in the Baghlan district in Afghanistan. The music he produced was not in accordance with the strict restrictions of the Taliban. They threatened his life and assaulted him many times, so he decided to leave with his family to Kabul. Fawad’s day job was as an FM radio producer; at night, he moonlighted as a singer and musician. He produced music for ceremonies and weddings, often performing for the women’s part, which the Taliban did not accept. Eventually, his life was again threatened, …

Faroosh And Elina, Faroosh, Elina, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Faroosh was a cameraman for a private television program in Afghanistan working on a documentary about the Taliban. When he and his crew were discovered, the Taliban attacked them and he and his wife fled to Turkey, walking 12 hours to get there. Upon arrival the police arrested and harassed them. Turkey was not a safe place. After several suicide bombings in the area, they decided to move on to Greece, where they are in a refugee camp without any progress in their situation. They have no money to move forward and no ability to work and the economic situation …

Economic Empowerment: An Avenue To Gender Equality In Afghanistan, Heather C. Odell

Global Tides

This paper examines the state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, recommending economic empowerment as the most effective and culturally sensitive tool in achieving gender equality. Women’s rights in Afghanistan came to the forefront of the international community’s attention following the entry of the United States armed forces in 2001. Media outlets highlighted the Taliban’s egregious treatment of women and government agencies and international NGOs poured into the country with aims of liberating women from oppressive circumstances. While significant strides have been made since the Taliban's fall from power, in many ways, women today remain subordinate. Over a decade later, women …

Arts: Fiction And Fiction Writers: The Americas, Rachel Norman

Faculty Publications

This essay by Rachel Norman, which originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, discusses contemporary Muslim fiction published in the United States with a particular focus on three novels: Mojha Kahf's The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, Laila Halaby's Once in a Promised Land, and Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home.

Modl: 398: Women In Quran—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Abla Hasan

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This project highlights the experience of teaching Quran as a literature through MODL 298: “Women in Quran”. This course is an attempt to read Quran as a diachronically approached literature and discover what would the analytic, linguistic as well as the critical study of both the Qur’anic text and its exegesis reveal when it comes to feminism and gender issues in Islam.

Muslim Head Coverings, Raven C. Waters

Student Publications

I researched female head coverings in the Muslim culture, to see how the veils affected society and society's response to the covering.

Women's Rights Movements In The 'Arab Spring': Major Victories Or Failures For Human Rights?, Hayat Alvi

Journal of International Women's Studies

With the 2011 “Arab Spring”, the issue of women’s empowerment has emerged as a parallel movement in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). What are the implications of the women’s empowerment movements in the MENA for improved political representation and rights? Do these developments contribute to long-term socio-political, legal, judicial, and economic reforms that would improve overall human rights, and especially women’s rights in the MENA? This paper is a comparative survey of women’s empowerment and rights, especially in terms of general human rights principles, as well as in terms of political representation in post-revolution Tunisia and Egypt. The …

To Veil Or Not To Veil: A Loaded Question, Lisa R. Rivoli

What All Americans Should Know About Women in the Muslim World

What all Americans should know about women in the Muslim world is that Muslim women are increasingly prohibited through legal measures to choose for themselves whether or not to veil, which reduces their agency and perpetuates the harmful idea that all Muslim women need saving.This paper takes a look at political and legislative interventions on veiling in several countries.

Muslim Women And United States Healthcare: Challenges To Access And Navigation, Dayna M. Seeger

What All Americans Should Know About Women in the Muslim World

This paper offers an analysis of the interactions of Muslim women in the US healthcare system in order to unpack challenges and propose potential accommodations. Islam may inform values or considerations in the context of other cultural factors or present Muslim women with specific challenges in seeking healthcare based on Islamic teachings or social constructs. This paper examines these factors by elaborating on an overview of Muslim interpretations of healthcare using religious authorities, text from the Qur’an, and social norms. It then delves into challenges faced by Muslim women in the US healthcare system and the implications of those challenges …

The Meaning Of Hijab: Voices Of Muslim Women In Egypt And Yemen, Kenneth E. Jackson, Elizabeth Monk-Turner

Journal of International Women's Studies

This work explores how Muslim women in Egypt and Yemen understand the hijab, or head scarf. Based on data (N = 100) from a self-administered questionnaire written in Arabic, differences about the meaning of hijab are examined from the perspective of women who wear or are expected to wear the head scarf. When asked what the hijab means, Egyptian women focus on religious reasons and Yemeni women emphasize a cultural (or modesty) understanding. When probed further about their understanding of hijab, Egyptian women split between religious and gendered explanations. Significant numbers of women in our Egyptian sample report …

Veil Bans In Western Europe: Interpreting Policy Diffusion, Adriana Piatti-Crocker, Laman Tasch

Journal of International Women's Studies

Veil Bans in Western Europe: Interpreting Policy Diffusion examines the diffusion of Muslim veil-ban laws in four Western European countries within the last decade; France, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. Nationwide bans on full-face Muslim veiling are rooted in several systemic, normative, and political accounts and advocated by contrasting political ideologies. Methodologically, this paper employs an integrative perspective to explain the process of diffusion in some countries but not in others, by exploring both external and internal factors that led to policy innovation. Overall, full-face Muslim veil bans in Western Europe have been intended to accelerate cultural integration of minorities …

Ua12/2/2 2015 Talisman: Resurgence, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

2015 Talisman yearbook.

• Osborne Sam. Into the Woods – Big To-Do Music & Arts Festival
• Spalding, Shelley. The Outliers – Greeks
• Badjie, Haddy. The Right to Live – Racism
• Gibson, Helen. Net Worth – Soccer
• Greer, John. Sustaining Seasons – Sustainability
• Wegert, Sally. Bloom – Eva Ross
• Cislo, Everett. Harvest – Hemp
• Kolb, William. Preserve – John All
• Voorhees, Jessica. Making Strides – Track & Field
• Greer, John. The Science Guy – Bill Nye
• Cole, Tanner. Lip Service – Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Belknap, Abby. Race to the Senate
• Gibson, Helen. Game of Loans – Student Financial Aid
• Belknap, Abby. …

The Image Of Women In The Interpreted Qur'an: Translations Of Pickthall, Ali, Hilali And Abdel Haleem, Yassmine Muhammad Mahfouz Muhammad

Theses and Dissertations

The Image of Women in the Interpreted Qur’ān: Translations of Pickthall, Ali, Hilālī, and Abdel Haleem By Yassmine Muhammad Mahfouz (Under the supervision of Professor Tahia Abdel Nasser, The American University in Cairo). I have intended this work with the premise of shedding light on the rights of women in the Qur’ān through examining its English translations since this topic has undergone much controversy between patriarchal and Islamophobic camps. However, through the examination of the translations, I have touched on how translation cannot only be problematic but also dangerously influential in presenting the sacred text. The main finding was that …

Female Reverberations Online: An Analysis Of Tunisian, Egyptian, And Moroccan Female Cyberactivism During The Arab Spring, Brittany Landorf

International Studies Honors Projects

Digital technologies and social media networks have the potential to open new platforms for women in the public domain. During the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions, female cyberactivists used digital technologies to participate in and at times led protests. This thesis examines how Tunisian, Egyptian, and Moroccan female cyberactivists deployed social media networks to write a new body politic online. It argues throughout that female activists turned to online activism to disrupt gender relations in their countries and demand social, religious, economic, and political gender parity.

Memoirs Of A Mother: Life Between An Islamic Fantasy, Cultural Patriarchy, And The Startling Reality., Nicole Fauster

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Article 490 of the Moroccan Penal Code deems sexual relations outside of marriage illegal and punishable by one month to one-year prison time. But in a society where marriage is often delayed due to financial restrictions, premarital sex is common and pervasive. Though premarital sex is the norm amongst many, if a lady becomes pregnant, the tables turn she is labeled a “whore” or a “street woman”. If a man fathers a child out of wedlock; he can simply deny affiliation and walk out of the picture.The woman is marginalized, and the father of the child does not bear any …

Stealing Women, Stealing Men: Co-Creating Cultures Of Polygamy In A Pesantren Community In Eastern Indonesia, Bianca J. Smith

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores how the practice of polygamy is maintained in a Sasak pesantren (a traditional Islamic boarding school for the study of the Qur’an, Hadith and classical texts) in Lombok, eastern Indonesia. Pesantren are patriarchal institutions that are managed by male Muslim teachers and preachers known in Lombok as tuan guru. I demonstrate how tuan guru play critical roles in the reproduction of polygamy in Sasak society by implicating women in the co-creation of polygamous marriage and simultaneously teaching strategies for resisting it. By situating Muslim women’s experiences in wider Indonesian and local Sasak discursive contexts, and based …

The Development Of Personal Status Law In Jordan & Iraq, Kelsey Cherland

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the historical development of personal status law, which governs a person’s marriage, divorce, and custody rights. It is significant because it is part of a framework that has defined women’s rights for centuries. I will argue that personal status law is a patriarchal framework that has been reinforced over time, leading up to the creation of nation-states in the Middle East. As such, this is the “institution” of personal status that will be traced using historical institutionalism theory. In this thesis I will argue that personal status has undergone a critical juncture, or crucial moment of potential …

Atatürk's Balancing Act: The Role Of Secularism In Turkey, Patrick G. Rear

Global Tides

The intersection of religion and politics in the form of a civil religion has been present since time immemorial. This paper looks specifically to the relationship between Turkey’s development of a secular civil religion after gaining independence and the advancing of women’s rights and democratic values. In examining the intersections of state and religion in a secular Islamic society, it draws parallels to the French civil religion as it came to be following the French Revolution. Though Atatürk and other secularists were strong forces in developing the civil religion, the paper also examines liberal democratic and conservative Islamic groups in …

Assimilation, Acculturation, And The Law: Solving A “Problem” Like Shar’Ia, Kristina E. Benson

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

An unexpected development in the English legal system involves Muslim women’s use of legally binding Shar’ia councils to protect their autonomy, marital security, and property rights. Although scholars and political commentators alike have voiced concerns that Muslim women will be treated unfairly in these councils, there is some indication that women have become adept at navigating this plural legal landscape and that they have often managed to secure better outcomes from Shar’ia family law than from English courts. Over 80 Shar’ia tribunals have been established to issue legally binding decisions on divorce, child custody, inheritance, and other areas of family …

Muslim Science As The Source Of The Portuguese Age Of Discoveries, Joseph Abraham Levi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Muslim Science as the Source of the Portuguese Age of Discoveries" Joseph Abraham Levi analyses the Jewish, mostly Sephardic, and Islamic contributions to science and their legacy in Iberia, particularly present-day Portugal. Using as a springboard the countless contributions to the sciences brought by Muslims to the Iberian Peninsula, southern France (mainly Provence), Sardinia, Sicily, and the rest of southern Italy, as well as other parts of the Mediterranean, Levi concentrates on the key role that Muslim scholars had, oftentimes assisted by their Sephardic Jewish counterparts, in training the scientific researchers of the then-burgeoning young Portuguese nation, …

Alexander The Great, Prester John, Strabo Of Amasia, And Wonders Of The East, I-Chun Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia, and Wonders of the East" I-Chun Wang analyses the wonders referred to the realm of Prester John and the imagination of India as exemplified in the pseudo-letter of Alexander the Great. The pseudo letters attributed to Prester John and Alexander demonstrate imagination and identity construction. Throughout history, terra incognita suggested a longing to discover new lands and utopia. Cathay, India, Timbuktu, and El Dorado have drawn the imagination of Westerners in different periods are represented in legends, folktales, literary texts, and travel and pseudo-travel texts. Including the said pseudo-letters, …

Jordanian Women’S Political Participation: On The Verge Of Arab Spring, Abdulhalim M. Al-Adwan

Journal of International Women's Studies

Recent decades in Jordan have witnessed considerable changes in women’s roles in the political sphere and in the community. Jordan has passed, modified, or adopted legislation that fosters the rights of women and the abolition of discrimination against them. Women experienced real visibility in higher leadership positions with 10.8% in the lower house and 11.7% in the senate. Yet, while women earn higher levels of education, their participation in the labor market is relatively low, and those who want to join the labor force meet higher levels of unemployment. Although women have made real progress in the public sphere, their …

The Muslim Sisters And The January 25th Revolution, Mona Farag

Journal of International Women's Studies

As the world watched in anticipation and trepidation the powerful force that was the January 25 revolution, one vital question stuck in everyone’s mind: how large was the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the events that took place during those 18 days prior to the stepping down of Mubarak? More importantly, with the newfound sense of freedom and democracy that has overtaken Egypt’s streets, how will the future of the Muslim Sisters be impacted? This paper will focus on the activities spearheaded by the Muslim Sisters during the revolution and the months leading up to the People’s and Legislative …

Unveiling The Veil Ban Dilemma: Turkey And Beyond, Adriana Piatti-Crocker, Laman Tasch

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines Turkey’s veil ban policy, which has been in place since the 1980s. The dilemma is whether Muslim-veil bans impinge on the rights of expression and religion at both national and international levels or, whether states may legally justify a ban on the basis of secularism and women’s rights. Even though the idea of freedom “from religion” in Turkey has been closely linked to the European notion of secularism during most of Turkey’s republican history, more recently, secularism and veil bans in Turkey and in the West have been construed quite distinctly. This shows an increasing gap between …

Goals, Challenges, And Successes Of A Girls Development Organization In Kenya : A Case Study Of Moving The Goal Post (Kilifi, Kenya), Madeline Boston

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Girls and Women in Kilifi District, Kenya are some of the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged people. Low retention rates in school, early and unintended pregnancies, and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS trap them in a cycle of intense poverty. Moving the Goalpost (MTG) in Kilifi uses football to empower girls and young women, helping them to fulfill their potential by engaging them in sport and educational development projects. This report analyzes the goals, challenges, and successes of MTG through understanding its organization capacity, and offers recommendations for improvement.

Fall 2012 Newsletter Of The Sarah Isom Center, Jaime Harker, Theresa Starkey

Isom Report

Official newsletter of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies