Mona Siddiqui Humanitas Visiting Professor in Women’s Rights, 2013/14 Feminism, Religion and Women’s Rights Lecture 1: Can You Text A Divorce? Negotiating Women’s Rights in Law and Society, 10 March 2014 In classical Islamic jurisprudence, marriage and divorce laws are essentially seen as performative utterances. Intention, wording and finality are fundamental to the validity – and end – of the marriage contract. Mona Siddiqui addressed, as a starting-point for an exploration of women’s rights in Islam, recent cases in some Islamic countries in which judges are allowing Muslim men to divorce via texting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QToe4M_Rsmo
Lecture 2: Mary in Christian-Muslim Relations, 11 March 2014 Mary or Mariam is mentioned more times in the Qur’an than in the entire New Testament. Some consider her role to be a bridge between the two faiths, an icon of purity and piety. But there is no cult of Mary in Islam and, as some have pointed out, her virginal status does not represent the ideal of the feminine in Islamic cultures. Yet Mary enjoys a distinct position in Islamic thought. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArAa8W-i99Y
Lecture 3: From the Feminine to Feminism: Women in Islamic Thought and Literature, 12 March 2014 Feminist perspectives on women and Islam either critique patriarchal structures or explain Qur’anic verses according to 7th-century contexts. Yet this sociohistorical emphasis has almost eclipsed the variety of images of the feminine to be found in Islamic thought, literature and poetry. Is the reality of women’s lives somewhere between both struggle and ideals, the feminine and the feminist? www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3xnxo9iVF8
Symposium: Feminism, Religion and Women’s Rights, 13 March 2014 The following speakers, chaired by Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional Affairs Professor Jeremy Sanders, examined women’s rights as a litmus test for democracy, and explored the role of art and literature in redefining women’s rights: Haifa Zangana (author); Elif Shafak (novelist); Razia Iqbal (BBC World Service); Professors Ash Amin and Jude Browne (Cambridge). www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HxQrX0DZCM Previous page: A Hopeful Prayer on the Night of Power © Senna Ahmad
Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh’s Divinity school in 2011 as the first Muslim chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies. Her research is primarily in the field of Islamic jurisprudence and Christian-Muslim relations. Amongst her many publications are Christians, Muslims and Jesus; The Good Muslim: Reflections on Classical Islamic Law and Theology; The Routledge Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations, and How to read the Qur’an. She has just completed a book recounting her own personal theological journey. In her public work, recognised in 2011 by the award of an OBE, Professor Siddiqui engages on issues of faith and ethics in society as a well known public intellectual. She is a regular commentator in print and broadcasting, a frequent contributor to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day , and she chairs the BBC’s Religious Advisory Committee.
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Professor Siddiqui’s eloquent series of lectures generated a remarkable conversation about Islamic feminism that took this topic far beyond the often hackneyed and xenophobic debates about the veil. Indeed what was proven to have been obscured by the relentless focus on Muslim women’s clothing are the brilliant insights of contemporary Islamic feminists and their interlocutors in both Muslim and non-Muslim communities around the globe. Professor Sarah Franklin Humanitas Women’s Rights Committee
The Humanitas Chair in Women’s Rights is made possible by the generous support of Mrs Carol Saper.
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