Muslim Women in America ─ The Challenge of Islamic Identity Today

The treatment and role of women is one of the most discussed and controversial aspects of Islam. In this volume, three respected scholars of Islam survey the situation of women in Islam, focusing on how Muslim views about and experiences of gender are changing in the Western diaspora. It offers an overview of the teachings of the Qur'an and the Prophet Muhammad on gender, analyzes the ways in which the West has historically viewed Muslim women, and examines how the Muslim world has changed in response to Western critiques. The volume then centers on the Muslim experience in America, examining Muslim American analyses of gender, Muslim attempts to form a new "American" Islam, and the legal issues surrounding equal rights for Muslim females. Such specific issues as dress, marriage, child custody, and asylum are addressed. It also looks at the ways in which American Muslim women have tried to create new paradigms of Islamic womanhood and are reinterpreting the traditions apart from the males who control the mosque institutions.

Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad is Professor of the History of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Georgetown University. Jane I. Smith is Senior Lecturer in Divinity and Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Harvard Divinity School. Kathleen M. Moore is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California - Santa Barbara.