Gaining freedom of speech and other forms of unfettered public visibility after long decades of repression and silencing – thanks to the January 25 Revolution – the Muslim Brothers now raise their collective voice in defence of patriarchal (...)
The revolution proper is coming. It must and it will. Egypt has had enough of autocratic patriarchies. The foundations are shaking. The intense public rejection of autocracy in all its formswith its unbearable repressions that started two years ago (...)
On December 20 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution against the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). On December 22 the national referendum in Egypt voted in a new constitution. What do the resolution and constitution bode (...)
At the mosque on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, DC , Margot Badran* encountered a frustrating experience
It was a bright winter Saturday in Washington with a strong sun bouncing light off the high piles of snow lining the streets after the (...)
One hundred years of women's struggle surrounded the US president, and echoed in his words, in his address from Cairo University, writes Margot Badran*
Women's equality and free choice as integral to religious ideals, human rights, and democracy (...)
Margot Badran* laments the recent closing down of Zanan, the Iranian Journal for Women
Zanan (Women) has been at the forefront in debates on women and gender within the framework of an egalitarian interpretation of Islam and for examining women's (...)
Margot Badran traces the mosque movement from Mecca to Main Street
Women are flocking to mosques around the world. Now, during Ramadan, they are packing mosques nightly in many countries for tarawwih or the recitation of the Qur'an. It has not (...)
Surveying the most recent developments in Islamic feminism, Margot Badran finds an increasingly dynamic global phenomenon that is as varied as it is radical
I gave a talk in Cairo in 2002 titled: "Islamic Feminism: What's in a Name?" There I (...)
Back from the north and middle belt of Nigeria, Margot Badran writes on current religious-political debates six years after the emergence of "Sharia states"
It is only recently that Nigerian Islam came centre stage as states in the north of the (...)
Could progressive readings of Islam enhance women's rights? In India, Margot Badran talks to Muslims who see religion as a way to emancipation
In India recently, I talked to lawyers, activists, and religious studies scholars who are part of the (...)
Eight years ago, three Egyptian women embarked at Alexandria on a ship bound for Italy. They were heading for Rome, to attend the International Alliance of Women Congress. Al-Ahram Weekly examines contemporary responses of the Italian and Egyptian (...)
Margot Badran writes from Turkey on the implications of the recent reform of the 1926 Civil Code on women's rights in marriage and divorce
"The amended Civil Code scraps the supremacy of men in marriage and allows women to have a say in all matters (...)
Islamic feminism is on the whole more radical than Muslims' secular feminisms, argues Margot Badran
What's in a name? What's behind a name? What is Islamic feminism? Let me offer a concise definition: it is a feminist discourse and practice (...)
What is going on in the Muslim community in post-independence Bulgaria? While participating in the Intercultural Studies Dialogue at Sofia University Margot Badran set out to discover answers
The first thing the grand mufti of Bulgaria told me after (...)
Margot Badran talks with Tajik author, academic, and activist Munira Shahidi in Yemen
In the old imamate capital of Kawkawban, perched on a high jebel peak reminiscent of the mountainscape of Central Asia, I talked with Tajik author, academic and (...)
By Margot Badran
People in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey cannot stop talking about a man who talks religion. Yasar Nuri Ozturk is ubiquitous. Ozturk has written for Turkish newspapers for nearly four decades. He currently writes a Wednesday and (...)