Women and Islam: Readings/Videos

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This message is being sent from Law.com (http://www.law.com) on behalf
of Kathleen Waits who wanted to share an item of
interest.  Kathleen Waits writes:

Dear Friends,

Parts of this article may be a little tough going for non-lawyers, but
I strongly recommend it.  It really helped me understand a lot about
the current issues concerning "Islamic law."

I think these issues could be relevant to Women's Studies for several
reasons: (1) we often face fundamentalist challenges of various kinds;
(2) we're interested in the status of women and children [the article
has a great discussion of how bin Laden can justify terrorism when the
Quran clearly says that women and children should not be killed; (3)
the whole question of interpretation and nuance can be given a
feminist analysis; (4) right at the moment - in both our courses and
our universities - most of us are scrambling to understand Islam and
the Middle East better.

Prof. Abou el Fadl really clarified a number of the current
controversies for me and helped me understand a lot more about
"Islamic law," both currently and historically.

Among other things, Prof. Abou el Fadl makes the point that
traditional Islamic law recognized that law inevitably involves
interpretation and indefiniteness.  The problem is not traditional
Islamic law but the fundamentalism of the last 200+ years, with
various fundamentalist interpretations of Islamic law being
disseminated as "facts" throughout the Muslim world - courtesy of the
support of the conservative Wahabbi movement by Saudi oil money.

Best,
Kate Waits
U. of Tulsa College of Law
"Annotating Islam":
<http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=law/View&c=Article&cid=ZZZCNQE4JUC&live=true&cst=1&pc=0&pa=0&s=News&showsummary=1>
Law.com is a single, comprehensive destination for legal information and e-law
services on the web, as well as a full-service legal products store.

Note that there's a link [VERY LONG] to click on.

http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=law/View&c=Article&cid=ZZZCNQE4JUC&live=true&cst=1&pc=0&pa=0&s=News&showsummary=1



Mary Jo Aagerstoun wrote:

>The article is not in the message. How do we get it?
>
>
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Mary Jo Aagerstoun
>University of Maryland at College Park
>mjaag  @  wam.umd.edu
>www.artwomen.org
>phone:(202)234-6038
>fax:(202)332-1479
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I got the article by going to the site and there it was right on the
homepage! But it prob won't be there tomorrow as it was today's headline.

I am not a lawyer and I found it not difficult to understand at all. Very
interesting. I will have to check out his book! I wonder if there have
been any similar legal interpretations from a feminist perspective by a
woman Islamic law scholar?


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mary Jo Aagerstoun
University of Maryland at College Park
mjaag  @  wam.umd.edu
www.artwomen.org
phone:(202)234-6038
fax:(202)332-1479
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Although not precisely on the same topics covered by Professor Abou el
Fadl, I recommend the following:

May Yamani, ed., Feminism and Islam:  Legal and Literary Perspectives.  New
York University Press, 1996.

Nancy Jabbra, Loyola Marymount University, njabbra  @  lmu.edu


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