Women in Islam: The Western Experience

by Anne-Sofi Roald

Investigates the ongoing debate, in both the Muslim world and the West, on the position of women in Islam. Illustrates how Islamic perceptions of women and gender relations change in Western Muslim communities.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415248957
• ISBN13: 9780415248952
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 358 Pages
• Weight: 1.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Excellent

This book is sooo extremely informative. It explores issues relating to Muslim women from many different Islamic perspectives (non-Muslims seem to be shocked that there is actually more than one Islamic perspective!!!). Roald, a convert to Islam, critically examines specific issues from the eyes of the most important and relevant players in contemporary Islamic discourse, from Eastern and Western Muslim feminists, to the typical mainstream Muslim writers (in the West and in the Arab world), to the Wahhabi/Salafi literalists. She is honest and insightful, and she includes personal experiences and anecdotes gathered from interviewees. She also gives well cited hadeeth evidence and Quranic verse to explain where many of her subjects' views originate. She ties modern Islamic rhetoric on women's issues to the convergence of Western cultural encounters with Islam/Muslims due to colonialism and globalization, together with basic Islamic sources of knowledge (Quran and hadeeth), and with culturalized Islam in the Arab context. This book is a MUST READ for people who want to take a critical and well-informed look at the "Women in Islam" issue.