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Sydney Morning Herald
21st November 2006

Muslim women flex muscles

NEW YORK: Muslim feminists from around the world have vowed to create the first women's council to interpret the Koran and overcome two stereotypes about their religion: that Muslims are terrorists and Islam oppresses women.

The women's council was among the most groundbreaking ideas introduced at a weekend meeting of more than 100 leaders in the fledgling Islamic feminist movement.

Many in the newly formed group, the Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality, said strict sharia law was not divine
because it was created by men and should be changed to incorporate women's rights.

"In our societies men hold power and they decide what Islam should mean and how we can obey that particular understanding of Islam," said Zainah Anwar, executive director of Sisters in Islam, a Malaysian group working on women's rights within the Islamic framework.

"I can't live with a God that is unjust," she said. "The law is progressive, but those men controlling the law aren't."

Daisy Khan, director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, said she hoped to create a fund to provide scholarships for Muslim women to study Islamic law so they could form a Shura Council of Women, the first with women interpreting the Koran.

The women also want to break down myths that exist, particularly in the West, said the American Society for Muslim Advancement's founder, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

"Two misconceptions about Islam are that it is associated with terrorism and that Islam is an oppressor of women … We need to change
the perception of Islam in the West, and this cannot be achieved without the participation of women."

The religious leaders, rights activists, scholars and politicians agreed that education was essential to breaking down barriers between
sexes and generations.

"Education is the solution and the answer to finding ways to break the barriers," said Wendy Chamberlain, deputy United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees based in Geneva and former US ambassador to Pakistan.

Marie Wilson, president of The White House Project, which tracks and promotes women in leadership positions, said: "Women in any country are the government in exile, and we should be the government in power."

- Reuters