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Islam in the West Conference – Harvard

FIRST ISLAM IN THE WEST CONFERENCE THOMPSON ROOM, BARKER CENTER HARVARD UNIVERSITY Friday, December 2, 2005 8:30-9:00 Breakfast Welcome by Prof. Roger Owen, Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies Introductory Remarks by Prof. Roy Mottahedeh, Center for Middle Eastern Studies 9:00-9:45 Prof. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons (University of Florida) – Introductory remarks “The New Hijab: Negotiating Tradition and Identity through Dress, Presentation of Fieldwork among Muslim Women in the Greater Boston Area” Presented by Danna Weiss, Center for Middle East Studies, FAS Session Commentary by Prof. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons 9:45-10:30 Prof. Ali Asani (Harvard University) – Introductory Remarks “Between…

Murder is better than divorce?

So thinketh the Dumass. Considering one of the Ten Commandment is “Thou shalt not kill,” I would have thought murder would be a bigger sin. Perhaps it’s what happens when you de-sacralize the word of God and simply make it a monument that has no religious meaning. BTW, did you know that Muslim women have the right to divorce? I did. Most Muslim women don’t. It’s a shame. I wonder if homicide rates in the Muslim world would go up if women knew their rights?

Jews, Muslims, and Orthodoxy

Over at Talk Islam, Abu Noor talks about what the face of Islam in America will look like. He picks up two issues that I have argued previously: 1. The Catholic-Protestant divide is not a useful analogy for discussing the Sunni-Shi’ah divide. 2. We do not need a Reformation in Islam. (See more recently, my talk on Muslims in the Media (part 2)) Where I have difficulty with his argument is the extension of the analogy with Judaism. I agree that the movement approach (Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, etc.) better fits the Muslim experience. We generally speak of turuq (paths), of…