The Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) is pleased to present the Muslim Women Scholars Series. One of CCMW's strategic goals is to promote critical thinking among Muslims and non-Muslims to challenge stereotypes and assumptions about Islam, Muslim women and their families. One way of doing this is to feature the work of contemporary Muslim women scholars focusing on diverse topics related to Muslim women.
For more information or partnership opportunities, email us at events@ccmw.com.
PAST MUSLIM WOMEN SCHOLARS SERIES EVENTS
LGBTIQ and Islam: Islamic Feminist Reflections on the Statement “Navigating Differences”
March 6 2024: 7:30 pm ET
Speaker: Nevin Reda
Respondent: Sara Abdel-Latif
Abstract: The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is reported to have said something along the lines of, “The parable of believers in regard to mutual love, affection, and fellow-feeling is that of one body; when any limb of it is in pain, the whole body throbs for it with sleeplessness and fever.” This talk examines the vulnerabilities and pains of both sides of the LGBTIQ Muslim debate, attempting to find a solution that is authentically Islamic, compassionate, and acknowledging of difference. It examines the strengths and weaknesses of the Canadian Council of Imams and allies’ statement “Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam,” showing its importance in conceptual language that is more comprehensible in the broader Canadian context, and demonstrating why the LGBTIQ-affirming Muslim positionality is vital, using Islamic ethical-legal concepts and texts. It provides a constructive critique of the continuation of the colonial paradigm in some contemporary laws and discourses surrounding the LGBTIQ issue and “barbaric cultural practices,” drawing on the pre-modern Islamic tradition and its practices of pluralism and spiritual wayfaring to suggest a way forward. It thereby provides avenues for a deeper realization of the values of inclusion, equity, and diversity, and attempts to provide healing for the polarization that threatens the body of the Muslim community, and maybe also society at large.
From Controversies to Conversations: Muslim Women in Contemporary North America
October 5 2023: 7:30 pm ET
Presenter: Dr. Meena Sharify-Funk
Muslim Women in Contemporary North America is a provocative study of how strongly held and divergent opinions, values, and beliefs, as well as misconceptions, overgeneralizations, and political agendas pertaining to Muslim women in the region, enter the public frame of reference. Interrogating contested topics in a series of case studies from both Canada and the United States, Dr. Sharify-Funk's book probes below the surface in pursuit of deeper understanding and more productive dialogue.
Chapters analyze controversies over "clash" literature, dissident reformists, female religious leadership, veils, and the nature of emancipation in a compelling examination of the ways in which "Muslim," "American," and "Canadian" identities and values are being defined, differentiated, and projected. By pinpointing both sources of dissonance and unexpected patterns of resonance among complex, composite, and at times overlapping identity constellations, this book uncovers the impact of controversies on broader cultural negotiations in the United States and Canada.
A Cinema of Resistance: Iranian Women Filmmakers
August 3 2023: 7:30 pm ET
Presenter: Zahra Khosroshahi
In this talk, Zahra Khosroshahi discusses her forthcoming book on Iranian women filmmakers as voices of resistance and dissent. Her talk looks at how women’s filmmaking in Iran confronts gender and representation, challenges the male gaze, and speaks from a position of agency. She explores how women filmmakers have not only influenced Iranian cinema, but contributed to the wider discourse of political resistance in Iran, and globally. The first part of the talk offers an overview of Zahra’s research, before looking in more detail at case studies on the themes of bodies, veiling, and collective feminism in the works of Rakhshan Banietemad and Mania Akbari.
Orientalist Feminism with Dr. Wafaa Hasan
May 25 2023: 7:30 pm
Presenter: Dr. Wafaa Hasan
Standing on the shoulders of trailblazing and critical racialized feminists, such as Nawaal el Saadawi, Ien Ang, Sunera Thobani, Gayatri Spivak, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Chandra Mohanty, Fatima Mernissi, Mallica Vajrathon, Patricia Monture, Dr. Wafaa Hasan argues that the legacy of “colonial dialogue” in North-South transnational feminist relationships remains. Through close readings of published academic dialogues, political manifestos, film and firsthand interviews with Palestinian women, she explores subtle and overt patterns of Orientalized feminism and “colonial dialogues” within solidarity work between self-titled “anti-racist,” “anti-occupation” solidarity activists for Palestine and Palestinian women (and communities).
She lays out the insidious patterns of “white feminist authority” (Lam) and abandonment during crises, through the violent and reckless impositions of white feminist ontologies (masqueraded condescendingly as intellectual rigour and superior moralities, through referential authority to European and often male theories of nationalism or liberalism).
How Deep Do the Problems in Our Ethical-legal Deliberations (fiqh) Go? Retrieving Justice and Beauty in Muslim Marriage
March 16 2023: 7:30 PM
Presenter: Dr. Nevin Reda
This talk introduces the new Musawah project, Justice and Beauty in Muslim Marriage: Towards Egalitarian Ethics and Laws, edited by Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, Jana Rumminger, and Sarah Marsso (London: Oneworld Academic, 2022). It takes a deep dive into usul al-fiqh (Islamic ethical-legal theory), showing some of the methodological problems and their manifestations in the construction of marriage and proposing solutions. It connects between spirituality and the realm of law/ethics, highlighting the importance of marriage as an institution for spiritual advancement and the foundational role it plays in instilling ethics and values, such as fidelity, justice, compassion, and generosity, all of which are essential for spiritual growth. It suggests that without justice in marriage, there can be no justice in society at the different levels for which there is a dying need today.
Traditional Storytelling in a Modern World
November 17 2022: 7:30 PM
Presenter: Ayesha S. Chaudhry
Ayesha S. Chaudhry will read from and engage in discussion about her recent book The Colour of God. Fusing grand historical narratives of colonialism and migration to the small, intimate heartbreaks of modern life, Ayesha S. Chaudhry examines the joys and sorrows of life in the wreckage of colonialism. In revisiting the beliefs and ideals she was raised with, Chaudhry invites us to reimagine our ideas of self and family, state and citizenship, love and loss.
The Breathwork of Ar-Rahman: An Islamic Conception of Birth Justice
July 14 2022: 7:30 PM
Presenter: Dr. Sarah Munawar
I offer an intersectional and Islamic ethic of reproductive care that makes visible the unmet care needs of and attends to the epistemic, moral and ontological injuries experienced by Muslim pregnant, birthing and postpartum people in a global pandemic. My feminist-theorizing is enveloped within Islamic stories of maternity, as well as an auto-ethnography of my birth-story. I offer a moral vocabulary of care which advocates for the Islamic right of Muslims to supported caregiving and labours against the violence of maternal separation. A central theme is kin-making, a type of caring labour, by which we house one another in our relations and accept responsibility for one another’s care and access needs. In an Islamic sense, kin-making is a kind of access-work, of sensing how our bodies fit and move together in the spaces we hold together. It is a way of making space in our gatherings, of homing, of housing within our relations those who have been dislocated by settler-colonial, heteropatriarchal and ableist violence . I argue that what paves safe passage for Muslims birthing in a pandemic are constellations of care that go beyond the scope of health-care settings and medicalized care. Such webs of care include Allah as doula, radical birthworkers, (grand)mothers, lands and waters, aunties and friends and the ancestors that watch over us in Creator’s name as we bear life. Such home-making is a way of mobilizing Islamic knowledge to protect the ontological security of Muslims and their right to possess their Muslimness, to think, critique and judge their experiences of reproductive care islamically.
We Are Not Seen as Human: Stories of Dis/citizenship
May 19 2022: 7:30pm
Presenter: Dr. Muna Saleh
Drawing from a 18 month narrative inquiry, this presentation will explore the pre-/post-displacement experiences of dis/citizenship as re/told by a Syrian Muslim refugee mother of dis/abled children. It will also explore larger themes of trauma, healing, and belonging in the midst of intersecting systems and dominant narratives.
How Do We Fight Domestic Violence from Within Our Tradition: Four Intervention Strategies from Qur’an 4:34
March 10 2022: 7:30 PM
Presenter: Nevin Reda
Respondent: Nazila Isgandarova
Qur’an 4:34 often features in contemporary discourses as a verse that promotes wife-beating. But does it really do that? This episode of CCMW’s Muslim Women Scholars series examines this verse closely and reads it in a linguistically accurate, methodologically sounds way, connecting not only various parts of the verse to each other and to the rest of the Qur’an, but also linking it to the contemporary context and the rising interest in spiritual care and psychotherapy. It demonstrates that—rather than make allowances for wife-beating—this verse offers four ethical intervention strategies that fight domestic violence and help put a stop to it. Together, they form a well-integrated program that works towards ending domestic violence at the individual and communal levels.
Black and White or Shades of Grey: Religious Approaches and Muslim Marital Conflict
December 9 2021: 7:30 PM
Presenter: Sarah Shah
Sarah Shah’s Full Article: Black and White or Shades of Grey: Religious Approaches and Muslim Marital Conflict
While the diversity of diasporic Muslim public experiences has been examined, the social contours of religious approach has received less attention. Moreover, the ways in which religion shapes marital relations remains understudied. This article, which features data from a larger research project, highlights two divergent trends in Muslim approaches to religion: exclusivity, which frames only one approach to Islam as correct, and inclusivity, which frames multiple approaches as correct. This divergence plays a role in shaping definitions of “good Muslim,” as exclusivist Muslims focus on ritual acts (outward observance), while inclusivist Muslims prioritize good manners (inward observance). I demonstrate how these inward and outward definitions of Muslimness in turn inform how participants evaluate their spouses’ religiosity and, thus, the potential for conflict over religiosity with their spouses. Event details here.
Examining the Uses of Therapeutic Apologies for Addressing the Emotional Injuries of Young Muslim Women
October 8 2021: 7:30 PM
Presenter: Arij Elmi
In the ten years that followed 9/11, research on Muslim Mental Health grew by 900% (Amer & Bagasra, 2013). My talk engages with the question of what is meant by the amalgamation of Muslim + Mental + Health. Focusing on therapeutic apologies (i.e., letters of apologies written from the perspective of a parent by an individual) shared by young Muslim women in Ontario and Quebec, I examine the ways that Muslimness both changes and is changed by our current therapeutic turn (i.e., the increasing dominance of understanding the self and others through psychotherapeutic language). I'll share how Muslim identity works as a schema that collaborates with, builds upon and challenges common ways of understanding the self in our present moment.
Talking Back From the Margins: Islam in the Lives of Sexually & Gender Diverse Muslim Women
August 5 2021: 7:30pm
Presenter: Maryam Khan, PhD
Within the diasporic Muslim communities in Canada and the U.S., there exist certain pervasive hegemonic normative discourses that situate sexually and gender diverse Muslim women as ‘outside’ the folds of Islam and authentic ‘Muslimness’. For example, such normative discourses construct Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer (LBTQ) Muslim women as sinful, deviant, un-Islamic, and influenced by the West. When left unchallenged, these discourses create ‘othering’ of LBTQ Muslim women; situate Islam as inherently transphobic and homophobic; and ignore that Islam is not a monolith and not a static tradition. Furthermore, these discourses fracture familial, cultural, religious, social, political, and ethnic ties that LBTQ Muslim women have with their communities of belonging, which are needed for survival in the growing Islamophobic, racist, and xenophobic policies and sentiments in Canada and the U.S.
This talk will unpack some of these hegemonic discourses rampant in Muslim communities by highlighting life stories of 14 LBTQ Muslim women in Canada and the U.S. Focus will be on how the women have resisted, negotiated and live out intersections of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity and expression, religion, and spirituality amidst the aforementioned hegemonic discourses in normative Muslim and the larger LGBTQ2+ communities. Transnational and critical race feminism, intersectionality theory and an Islamic liberationist approach to gender and sexuality framed this qualitative project. The findings suggest that LBTQ Muslim women deployed specific strategies and politics to resist, subvert, and challenge homo- and hetero- norms within the Islamic tradition. Further, the women continue to maintain a strong connection to their families and Islam rather than abandoning them, and that a LBTQ Muslim women intersectional identity is not inherently antithetical to Islam.
Secularism, Sexuality, and Islam: Ismat Chughtai’s Indian Muslim Progressivism
The goal of this seminar is to offer a new perspective on secularism in Muslim thought. The need for such a project is keenly felt, since today Islam is often framed as incompatible with the institutions of secularism. Sadaf Jaffer will examine Urdu writer and Indian cultural critic Ismat Chughtai’s formation of an “Indo-Muslim secular” through literature and cinema from the 1940s through the 1980s as well as the continuing significance of her work in contemporary South Asia.
What is the Qur’an and How Does One Read It? A Spiritually Integrative Perspective
This seminar explores the function of the Qur’an as a pathway to spiritual advancement and the importance of ethical behaviours within this framework, especially gender justice. It examines classical interpretive methodologies, their strengths and weaknesses and how to make the best of them, showing the importance of thinking for oneself and of engaging the heart in the interpretive process.