Asma Lamrabet – författare

Today, the issue of Muslim women is held hostage between two perceptions: a conservative Islamic approach and a liberal Western approach. At the heart of this debate Muslim women are seeking to reclaim their right to speak in order to re-appropriate their own destinies, calling for the equality and liberation that is at the heart of the Qur'an.However, with few female commentators on the meaning of the Qur'an and an overreliance on the readings of the Qur'an compiled centuries ago this message is often lost. In this book Asma Lamrabet demands a rereading of the Qur'an by women that focuses on its spiritual and humanistic messages in order to alter the lived reality on the ground.By acknowledging the oppression of women, to different degrees, in social systems organized in the name of religion and also rejecting a perspective that seeks to promote Western values as the only means of liberating them, the author is able to define a new way. One in which their refusal to remain silent is an act of devotion and their demand for reform will lead to liberation.Asma Lamarbet is a pathologist in Avicenna Hospital, Rabat, Morocco. She is also an award-winning author of many articles and books tackling Islam and women's issues.Myriam Francois-Cerrah is a writer and broadcaster whose articles have been published in the Guardian, Salon, and elsewhere.

Today, the issue of Muslim women is held hostage between two extreme perceptions: that of a rigid and conservative Islamic approach and that of a Western ethnocentric and Islamophobic approach. These two perceptions lead to an impasse in which it is virtually impossible, given how embedded ideas are fixed to respective certainties, to conceive of a fair and objective debate aimed at clarifying the two perspectives. Nevertheless, recent developments mean that at the heart of this intellectual effervescence, Muslim women are seeking to reclaim their right to speak in order to re-appropriate their own destinies. Indeed, today many female Muslim intellectuals living in Muslim societies and in the West, are questioning a number of negative preconceptions surrounding these issues. In particular, they contest the classical analysis which stipulates inequality between men and women and the attendant discriminatory measures, as being an inherent part of the sacred text by asserting that it is in fact certain biased readings, endorsed by patriarchal customs, which have legitimated these erroneous inequalities.This new perspective argues that Muslim women should be free to make their own choices, to rewrite their history and to define their own spaces of freedom - a freedom that is firmly anchored in a spiritual belonging but which is open on all human experiences and is ready to share with others - all others - the Qur'an's universal values of ethics and justice.

Today, the issue of Muslim women is held hostage between two extreme perceptions: that of a rigid and conservative Islamic approach and that of a Western ethnocentric and Islamophobic approach. These two perceptions lead to an impasse in which it is virtually impossible, given how embedded ideas are fixed to respective certainties, to conceive of a fair and objective debate aimed at clarifying the two perspectives. Nevertheless, recent developments mean that at the heart of this intellectual effervescence, Muslim women are seeking to reclaim their right to speak in order to re-appropriate their own destinies. Indeed, today many female Muslim intellectuals living in Muslim societies and in the West, are questioning a number of negative preconceptions surrounding these issues. In particular, they contest the classical analysis which stipulates inequality between men and women and the attendant discriminatory measures, as being an inherent part of the sacred text by asserting that it is in fact certain biased readings, endorsed by patriarchal customs, which have legitimated these erroneous inequalities.