WISE Reflections on Muslim Women’s Leadership

November 3, 2011 By diana

This year the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) held its third global conference in Istanbul Turkey. The conference, titled “WISE: Muslim Women Leaders at the Frontlines of Change,” lasted just four days, from October 14 to October 17, 2011.  It included panel discussions, debates, and training sessions.

WISE Conference Participants. Photo via the WISE Conference Flikr page

This year’s conference was centered on the topic of Muslim women’s leadership. “A Woman’s Place in Islam – Views from Turkish Women” was just one of the featured panels. Interactive case studies, such as “Muslim Women who Sparked the Egyptian Revolution,” featured stories and accounts from Muslim women who played an vital role in the Egyptian revolution. Among those present to give their account of the Egyptian revolution was 26-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz, creator of the now-famous Youtube video that called on Egyptians to take to the streets in peaceful protest on January 25, 2011.

Conference participants included more than 180 Muslim women from 45 countries, representing different areas of expertise. These women represented Muslim women scholars, activists, writers, politicians, artists, religious and spiritual leaders, civil society leaders and even those who helped ignite the Arab Spring. Among the participants were the familiar names of Tayyibah Taylor, Editor-in-Chief of Azizah Magazine, and Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini, founding member of Musawah Global Movement for Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family. All were present to contribute to educating and empowering Muslim women through an Islamic perspective.

The WISE Conference is an enterprise born from the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), a New-York based nonprofit that aims to, “elevate the discourse on Islam and foster environments in which Muslims thrive.” ASMA founder and director, Daisy Khan, suggested that the location of the third global conference in Turkey was deliberately chosen because it “has a rich history of pluralism. If it shares that with the world, it can have an impact on how we reshape our world. Turkey presents a model for how you can be both secular and Muslim…”

With this model of a pluralistic pursuit of truth, the WISE conference transpired, answering the question that was at the very heart of this gathering: does the religion of Islam exclude women from leadership roles?

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Filed Under: Culture/Society, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

HBO’s “Love Crimes of Kabul”

July 11, 2011 By diana

Love Crimes of KabulHBO is set to air “Love Crimes of Kabul” at 9pm tonight as part of their documentary films summer series. This intimate documentary goes inside Badam Bagh, a women’s prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, to tell the stories of three women who are being accused of committing “love crimes” or more commonly termed, “moral crimes”.

Among the prison’s 125 female prisoners, those who are there for “moral crimes,” are accused of things that, in most societies, would be termed rebellious at worst. These women, therefore, find themselves at a complex intersection between religion and the law, where the application of rules is often ambiguous and where marriage can make the difference between freedom and imprisonment.

The documentary follows three of such women prisoners accused of “moral crimes”. The first is Kareema, a 20-year-old woman whose crime is having premarital sex with her fiancé.  The second woman is 23-year-old Aleema, who is accused of running away from her home. The third and youngest woman of the three is Sabereh, who is accused of having premarital sex with a boy she is in love with.

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Filed Under: Politics, Television Tagged With: , , ,

Headscarf and the Angry Bitch: A Review of Zehra Fazal’s Play

July 6, 2011 By diana

I recently had the opportunity to see Zehra  Fazal preform her musically-inclined comedy show titled “Headscarf and the Angry Bitch” at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.  Her one-woman show centers on a fictional character named Zed Headscarf who tours around mosques, giving lectures in order to educate congregants about Islam through her folk songs.

Zehra Fazal

Zehra Fazal in 'Headscarf and the Angry Bitch."

Her “lecture series” opened with a discussion of the most basic of topics, with Fazal defining for the audience key words such as halal and haram and key concepts such as the oneness of God or the five pillars of Islam. As the show continued, more sensitive subjects such as having a hyphenated identity, terrorism and virginity were discussed.  Each subject was approached from an intimate, albeit tongue-in-cheek, perspective which seemed to be, in part, drawn from Fazal’s own experiences as an American-Muslim woman of South-East Asian descent.

Despite the largely non-Muslim audience she draws, Fazal’s comedic flair, as well as her use of explanatory narratives allows her to keep her audience engaged as opposed to alienated. Caucasian men and women of our parents’ generation were all laughing along, demonstrating that Fazal’s comedy was not “lost in translation”.  Her animated character and on-stage energy were wonderful and drew the audience in.

To add to the shock factor of her show, Fazal dons the hijab while on stage and satirizes taboo subjects such as oral sex, homosexuality and reproductive health.  She also, quite cleverly parodies popular songs such as Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” adding her own witty lyrics, charming guitar playing skills and fierce voice.

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Filed Under: Art/Theater Tagged With: , , ,
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