Total Publications: 6

    • Redefining Muslim Women’s Roles in the next Century

      “The new millennium is blowing winds of change over the Muslim world. After centuries of relative seclusion, Muslim women have awakened to their critical role in society and are demanding their right to full participation in the public square. Patriarchal customs are being rejected, laws are being revised, and women are increasingly participating in various aspects of public life. Foremost in the struggle for greater roles in society is the revision of antiquated personal status codes (family laws) that have often deprived women of essential liberties. Revising these codes is not an easy matter because they rely primarily on religious law.”

    • first published in in The Journal of Law and Religion, pp. 37-66 (Fall 2001).
    • Download PDF

    • Muslim Women’s Rights in the Global Village: Challenges and Opportunities

      In this age of information technology that shrank our world into a global village, it is fair to ask how this recent development has impacted Muslim women’s rights across the world. Having just traveled through nine Muslim countries, ranging from Pakistan and Bangladesh to the Gulf States, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, I would answer that it is leading, slowly but surely, to reassessment and change.1

    • 12 American University Journal of International Law and Policy 1 (1997)
    • Download PDF

    • Islam, Law and Custom: Redefining Muslim Women’s Rights

      Muslim women’s rights have been the subject of a great deal of debate, most recently in Beijing and Huairou.1 While many secular feminists have criticized patriarchal religiously-justified laws in Muslim countries, many Muslim women have defended Islam as the guarantor par excellence of women’s rights.

    • Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Susan Okin, ed., pp. 41 46 (Princeton University Press, 1999)
    • Download PDF

    • Is Western Patriarchal Feminism Good for Third World/Minority Women?

      The issue of conflicting rights raised by Susan Okin’s paper is of fundamental importance to any serious human rights discourse. Okin’s perspective, discussion, and proposal, however, all suffer from three fatal problems: (1) stereotypical views of the “Other”; (2) a conflation of distinct belief systems; and (3) conflict with American constitutional principles.

    • One Nation Under God, M. Garber and R. Walkowitz, eds., pp. 128 142 (Routledge, 1999).
    • Download PDF

    • Islamic Law and Muslim Women in America

      This year promises to be an historical year for Muslim women in America. A collection of articles on Muslim women’s issues, written1 from both theoretical and practical points of view, will appear. The collection is unique, because the women who contributed to it represent a microcosm of the Muslim community in America. No such book has ever been written before. It is the culmination of decades of effort at producing significant Muslim women’s writings rooted in the Qur’an and uniquely informed by the American experience.

    • Women in Indonesian Society: Access, Empowerment and Opportunity, pp. 3-26, M. Atho Mudzhar et al., Sunan Kalijaga Press 2001).
    • Download PDF

    • Qur’anic Foundations of the Rights of Women in the Twenty First century

      “The crisis of modernity in Islamic societies, generally, and of Muslim women’s rights, specifically, has led some individuals to wonder whether Islam has become outdated. After all, the Qur’an was revealed over fourteen hundred years ago to an illiterate man in the Arabian peninsula. How relevant could that revelation be today in a highly technological global village at the dawn of the twenty-first century? This article addresses this issue by starting from the premise that the Qur’an was revealed for all people, for all times and for all places. Consequently, it is as relevant today to the United States and Indonesia as it was relevant to the Arabian tribes of the past.”