“Are you Muslim?” asked a student in Professor Zayn Kassam’s first class on Women in Islam. The Professor replied that she was and the student responded, “Then how do we know you won’t spend this class defending how Muslims treat their women?”
Kassam responded with an assurance and a challenge: “I’m not going to defend how Muslims treat their women,” she said, “but at the end of this course, you might. Or you might rethink the question.”
Professor Kassam has since taught the class and encounter the many times. “Women’s struggles for justice are not restricted to the Muslim world,” she says. “Women of all faiths have struggled with patriarchal understandings of their sacred texts. The question is – how are Muslim women dealing with such interpretations? What forms does their activism take on behalf of gender justice? Rather than being a struggle between faith and justice, Muslim women are finding that their faith asks them to ensure that women are given opportunities to claim their rightful place in society.”
via Muslim Women and the Jihad for Gender Justice | Faculty of ARTS.
Related: Tea Time with Dr. Kassam: Conversation about women in Islam
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