Resources

3/3/2003

The anthology bears witness to the anti-war attitudes and activities of women from the Yugoslav geographical space. It is a record of their emotional conflicts and pain, yet, at the same time, a testimonial of their strength and vitality. It treasures every individual story and every emotion. In this respect is follows Simone Weil’s dictum from the year 1943: “In momentous historical events, personal emotions have a significance which has never received proper attention.”

28/2/2003

The Women’s Movement in Iran: Women at the Crossroads of Secularisation and Islamization

The paper thus outlines the social and political conditions that have led not only to the development of secular feminist perspectives in Iran, but to the emergence of woman-centred Islamists and their strategies which aim, thus far with considerable success, to fundamentally challenge conventional gender visions often presented as "Islamic." This analysis of the gender debates in Iran, and by extension elsewhere in the Muslim world, reiterates that Islam, particularly as a political ideology, is far from static and unchanging; it is a dynamic and evolving ideological force that

28/2/2003

Riffat Hassan: Selected Articles

Interview and articles from Riffat Hassan, the progressive theologian and academic specialized in Islamic sciences. Riffat Hassan defends a more humane, democratic and feminist interpretation of Islam in general and of the Quran and other sacred texts in particular (in French).

28/2/2003

Women in the Qur'an: Qur’anic Interpretation by Women Meeting: Information Kit

Revealed narratives and legislation are then pursued through their medieval, modern, and contemporary interpretations. The theological exegetic sources here chosen, all Sunni, include the major classical works as well as, for the modern period, examples of modernist, traditionalist, and fundamentalist exegesis. For Hadith materials beyond the theological tafsir, Stowasser analyzes both popular narratives of the "tales of the prophets" genre and representative samples of the classical historical and legal hadith.

28/2/2003

Reaching Out, Changing Our Lives, Outreach Strategies and Women Living Under Muslim Laws

Based on the sharing that took place at the 1999 WLUML Outreach Strategies Exchange Programme meeting, this tool documents some of the network’s experiences of outreach and identifies the basic principles that underlie outreach activities – no matter how diverse the actual activities have been across the Network With the aim of inspiring experimentation and dialogue among groups conducting outreach activities, it shared strategies at both general and specific illustrative levels.

28/2/2003

Fatwas Against Women in Bangladesh

This publication describes death sentences pronounced against women in order to obstruct women's development and education, those against women journalists, women who have been accused of sex outside marriage and cases of violence against women and situates these in the religious/political context of Bangladesh in the 1990s.

28/2/2003

Time to Speak Out: Illegal Abortion and Women’s Reproductive Health in Pakistan

Research & writing on abortion and reproductive health in Pakistan: The International Context: The ICPD of Action and Abortion; Hopes and Realities: a Global Perspective; Reproductive Health and Population Programmes in Pakistan since 1947; Harsh Realities: The why and how of abortion in Pakistan: Scientific Research into Incidence of Abortion.

3/2/2003

Dossier 17: The Shahrur Phenomenon: A Liberal Islamic Voice from Syria

In the early I990s the Arab world has witnessed an extraordinary publishing phenomenon. An 800 page book on Islam, Al-kitab wa’lqur’an: qira’a mu’asira (The Book and the Qur’an: a contemporary reading), was first published by the Ahali Publishing House Damascus in 1990. The book challenges a millennium of Islamic tradition. It is highly critical of the social, political and intellectual state of contemporary Arab countries. The author has been denounced as ‘an enemy of Islam’ and as ‘a Western and Zionist agent’. To date eleven other books have been written attacking his theses.

3/2/2003

Dossier 17: The Muted Voices of Women Interpreters

There are few women interpreters in the history of Islam because women are seen to be the subject of the Islamic shari’a and not its legislators. Yet even the few interpreters who have appeared during the long history of Islam have been kept at the periphery, their views never allowed to influence Islamic legislation. Moreover, even men interpreters who were open-minded about women were marginalized and, in some cases, found their authority questioned.

3/2/2003

Dossier 17: Women’s Rights in the Current Political Backdrop of Afghanistan

Introduction:

Violence against women is one of the sharp indicators of the subordinate position of women in the society. Violence exists in different forms, different levels from personal to physical violence to structural violence, justified by religion, culture and laws. Most of the steps taken from the protection of women against violence tend in addressing the women rather than men. These steps don’t enforce laws or take action against men.

The women issues are political issues. The social paradigms don’t recognize this.