"I am a free-lance academic, passionately involved in debates on gender equality in law. As a feminist, I expose and criticize the injustices that these laws continue to inflict on women in some Muslim contexts. As a Muslim, I approach these injustices by stressing one crucial element in the tradition of Muslim legal thought: the distinction between Shari‘a (the ‘path’, found in the Qur’an and the Prophet’s practice) and fiqh (‘understanding’, the jurists’s efforts to deduce laws from these textual sources); this distinction enables us to see patriarchal laws not as ‘divine Shari‘a’, but as outdated human fiqh. My aim is to bring Islamic and human rights frameworks together in order to lay the basis for an egalitarian Muslim family law."
Fiqh (/fɪk/; Arabic: فقه [fɪqh]) is Islamicjurisprudence.[1] While Sharia is believed by Muslims to represent divine law as revealed in the Quran and the Sunnah (the teachings and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad), fiqh is the human understanding of the Sharia[2]—sharia expanded and developed by interpretation (ijtihad) of the Quran and Sunnah by Islamic jurists (Ulama)[2] and implemented by the rulings (Fatwa) of jurists on questions presented to them.
“RUNAWAY is a powerful and heart-breaking documentary about a group of young runaway girls who are taken to a women's shelter in Tehran, Iran. The film focuses on the sufferings of young girls who struggle to free themselves from the tyrannical and abusive power of their families, mainly their fathers, brothers, and stepfathers. The sisterly feelings of the girls towards each other, their spiritual strength, their courage to rebel, and their wit are shown with a great degree of compassion and empathy in the film. The filmmakers have beautifully criticized the patriarchal system of family and the destructive power of male family members over the lives of their daughters and sisters. One can imagine that the issue of confinement and abuse goes beyond the issue of class when it comes to the problem of domestic violence and the desire to control women through anger, aggression and madness.” - Mehrnaz Saeed, Colombia College Chicago
Divorce Iranian Style
Hilarious, tragic, stirring, this fly-on-the-wall look at several weeks in an Iranian divorce court provides a unique window into the intimate circumstances of Iranian women’s lives. Following Jamileh, whose husband beats her; Ziba, a 16-year-old trying to divorce her 38-year-old husband; and Maryam, who is desperately fighting to gain custody of her daughters, this deadpan chronicle showcases the strength, ingenuity, and guile with which they confront biased laws, a Kafaka-esque administrative system, and their husbands’ and families’ rage to gain divorces.
Scholar and filmmaker Ziba Mir-Hosseini, a specialist in Islamic law, gender and development and Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Law, University of London, is the recipient of the 2015 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion. At the Marty Forum, Professor Mir-Hosseini will be interviewed by Diana L. Eck, Harvard University. The Marty Award recognizes extraordinary contributions to the public understanding of religion.
Michael Kessler (Georgetown University) and Ayesha S. Chaudhry (University of British Columbia), Presiding
Fight for equality for women in Islam: Musawah.
I am a free-lance academic, passionately involved in debates on gender equality in law. As a feminist, I expose and criticize the injustices that these laws continue to inflict on women in some Muslim contexts. As a Muslim, I approach these injustices by stressing one crucial element in the tradition of Muslim legal thought: the distinction between Shari‘a (the ‘path’, found in the Qur’an and the Prophet’s practice) an
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