I started classes last month (this is my excuse for the slower entries) and a couple of things have surfaced: firstly, in a study of masculinities and femininities course, the inquiry of nature versus nurture in regards to gender predictably emerged. Secondly, in a timely manner, Scientific American produced this excellent article critiquing a study …
Continue reading The Ramifications of Insisting Men and Women are from Different Species
A methodological approach that has been mentioned on this site numerous times in passing is the consideration of the Qur’an holistically; that is, each verse contains the message of the entire Qur’an within it. One verse cannot be isolated from the rest of the religious text. The Qur’an is continuous, self-clarifying, and self-defining. This is …
Continue reading Interpretation: the Qur’an as a Holistic Text
I received two emails yesterday inquiring as to what I thought about the Goatmilk debate on the compatibility of Islam and feminism. Seeing as the argument of the opposition was a collection of the usual pedestrian perspectives that conclude the two are irreconcilable, I hadn’t planned on writing about what I’ve already addressed over a …
Continue reading On the Compatibility of Islam and Feminism: A Response to the Goatmilk Debate
I’d like to say that finals are in a couple of weeks, and though the actual testing itself will not be keeping me from this blog (I can’t study even if I try) the number of research papers due by the end certainly will. Entries until mid-December may be uncharacteristically infrequent or brief. Lately I’ve …
Continue reading The Western Muslim Woman, Part I: Constructions of Race and Appropriation
I want to talk about ji’had (struggle), and I want to talk about it at its most basic elementary level to demonstrate how it relates to social justice, and, is essentially, at the core of striving toward it. And I want to do this by considering the configuration of human beings. God began the creation …
Continue reading Appreciating Social Justice from the Unseen
(Image: Women stand beneath a sign that reads "Come In and Learn Why Women Ought to Vote"; meanwhile, a man films them with a camera labeled "Girls Gone Wild.") If you haven't heard of Steven Greenstreet, you're not missing anything. He's the typical mansplaining sexist masquerading as a progressive; specifically, he's the idiot who thought …
A quick post, because I have an intense day ahead of me. A couple of weeks ago in class I found myself shifting uncomfortably in my seat, unfortunately not due to any intriguing challenge to my perspective. My English professor, who is extremely intelligent, concluded an anecdote regarding the derogation of her field by people …
the fatal feminist 