Reading List: Women

As a counter to Bernie Lewis, Feisal Abdul Rauf has written a book entited “Whats Right With Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West”. I have not read it yet, but am intrigued with the title. Has anyone read it? If so, can you post a review. Here is the text from the books jacket: “One of the most pressing questions of our time is what went wrong in the relationship between Muslims and the West. Continuing global violence in the name of Islam reflects the deepest fears by certain Muslim factions of Western political, cultural, and economic…

The husband of a dear friend has just published a book called Home Boy. The New York Times seems to love it. Naqvi’s smart and sorrowful debut is at once immigrant narrative, bildungs roman and New York City novel, with a dash of the picaresque. Immigrant stories are often appealing not only because they dramatize the longing to trade oppression for freedom and prosperity, but also because they have the perfect antagonist: America itself. Set in Manhattan just after Sept. 11, 2001, this novel follows three bright and likable college- age Pakistani men — AC, Jimbo and Chuck. Before 9/11,…

Rearrange Your Head: An Interview with American Muslim Convert and Memoirist G. Willow Wilson | RDBook | ReligionDispatches. Sheikhas and alimas [female spiritual and religious authorities], if you can find any — and you have to look pretty hard — will totally change the way you think about Islam and gender. There is a long and revered tradition of female scholarship in this religion, but it’s dying out. Most of the female scholarship we have now is part of a new tradition—postmodern academia—not a continuation of the old. Old school sheikhas, educated the traditional way, will rearrange your head. In…