Seeking participants for a study on Muslim women’s marriage to non-Muslims

Beloved readers,

Some of you know I’ve been working on a research project on Muslim women’s marriage to non-Muslims for the last some years. (It was a chapter in my dissertation and my favorite one, and I’ve written on it on my blog – see this one on interfaith marriage in the Qur’an and a follow-up reflection on the responses to that post.) I’m interested in both textual traditions and the application of those texts/scriptures, their interpretations, how humans negotiate with texts to find meaning in them and extract meaning from them. The first part of my project, ultimately a book, is therefore a textual/scriptural analysis. The second part is ethnographic, involving conversations and interviews with real, actual Muslim women who have been in interfaith marriages/romantic relationships. And this is where I need y’all’s help!

What I need / who qualifies

Script: Summary of Ch. 8 of “Sexual Ethics” – The Prophet Muhammad, His Beloved Aisha, and Modern Muslim Sensibilities

Script of the latest video on What the Patriarchy?! Video here and the script is below.

Hello, salaam, and welcome to my channel, What the Patriarchy, where we’re working to dismantle the patriarchy one Islamic feminist issue at a time! I’m Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani. Thank you for being here.

Today, we continue our summary of Dr. Kecia Ali’s book Sexual Ethics & Islam, now at chapter 8, which is called The Prophet Muhammad, his beloved Aisha, and Modern Muslim Sensibilities. The chapter’s sections are: apologetics and polemics, searching for solace, conclusion, and coda.  

You see, according to a hadith, Aisha was six years old when the Prophet married her and nine when the marriage was consummated. So Muslims are faced with the challenge of having to reconcile this incident with their discomfort. It’s “tricky,” to quote the author, for Muslims to simultaneously believe that Muhammad is a role model for Muslims for all times but also believe that today’s men cannot marry 9 year olds. And so Muslims have responded to this dilemma in various ways, including by insisting that she was actually in her teens when the consummation occurred.

This chapter highlights what Aisha’s marriage reveals about Muslims’ own anxieties around gender, marriage, and sexual ethics. So the dif things that Muslims highlight from this episode in Muhammad’s life, tells us what is important or unimportant to Muslims at any given time that they are expressing opinions on this very controversial marriage, something we’re embarrassed by, something we’re proud of, something we’re neutral toward, and so on, etc.

Video Script: “Female bodies and male agency in the Qur’an”: Q. 4:34, the Qur’an’s audience, and verses on sex and marriage – Summary of Dr. Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics, Ch. 7

The following is the (rough?) script for my latest video on What the Patriarchy?!

Hello, salaam, and welcome to my channel, What the Patriarchy, where we’re working to dismantle the patriarchy one Islamic feminist issue at a time! I’m Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani.

Today, we continue our summary of Dr. Kecia Ali’s book Sexual Ethics & Islam, now at chapter 7, which is titled “If you have touched women: female bodies and male agency in the Qur’an.”

In this chapter, Dr. Kecia Ali analyzes the language of the Qur’anic verses that focus on marriage, sex, female bodies, menstruation, divorce and points out that while the verses are all ultimately complicated and cant simply be read as feminist or patriarchal, the language in them indicates female passivity and male agency. With exceptions. And she concludes that this suggests that men seem to have greater scope for action and moral agency. It does not mean that the Quran doesn’t care about women or justice for women and so on, but simply that these verses and this language raise questions for folks concerned with egalitarian interpretations of the scripture.

You should be investing, not just saving. Here’s some tips/suggestions.

I’m making this a whole blog post now because it got very long on my Facebook.
There are too many people in my life whom I love and who aren’t doing great with money, like not investing their money. Here are some ideas to help you get started.

But, first, what is investing? How does it work?

Video Script: Female “Circumcision”/Genital Cutting in Islam – summary of Ch. 6 of Sexual Ethics & Islam, by Kecia Ali

Script for my latest video on What the Patriarchy?! Below the video.

Hello, salaam, and welcome to What the Patriarchy, where we’re working to dismantle the patriarchy one Islamic feminist issue at a time! I’m Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani, PhD in Islamic Studies and an assistant professor of Religion.

Today, we continue our summary of Dr. Kecia Ali’s book Sexual Ethics & Islam, now at chapter 6, which is titled “reduce but do not destroy”: female ‘circumcision’ in Islamic Sources. I like how it says “Islamic sources” and not “Islam.”

If you HAVE to assign just one chapter from this book to a Muslim audience to complicate the idea of “Islam” to them, or if you HAVE to read just one text that will complicate what “Islam” means for you, I think this is it. It does an excellent job challenging any popular Muslim assumptions and expectations of what it means to say that something is Islamic.

Important note before I continue, Ali doesn’t use the word genital mutilation here, or circumcision, just genital cutting – and that’s a statement.

Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani and Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini: on “Journeys Toward Gender Equality in Islam”

This script to my latest video on What the Patriarchy?! is barely edited, so please read at your own risk. I hope to get the time to edit it more later, inshaAllah.

The video is available here, script below.

Assalamu alaikum, everyone! This is Shehnaz! Welcome to hashtag what the patriarchy my youtube channel where we work on uprooting the patriarchy through islamic feminism thank you for being here i did an episode a few months ago or a couple of months ago with Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini on her latest book Journeys Toward Gender Equality in Islam, and i promised in there that i have a conversation slash interview with her coming up soon and this video is going to provide that interview to you this discussion was originally hosted for the new books network podcast specifically the channel new books in islamic studies for which i am one of the hosts and i will provide a link to that in the description of this video thank you so much for watching and i hope you enjoy this as much as i did!

Summary of “Journeys Toward Gender Equality in Islam” by Ziba Mir-Hosseini (video script)

Here it is!! My latest video on What the Patriarchy?! Conversation with the author coming up soon. Script below the video.

Hello, salam, and welcome to What the Patriarchy, where we work on destroying the patriarchy. Which I know sounds very ambitious, but we got this!

Today, we’re going to talk about this wonderful exciting new book by Ziba Mir-Hosseini called, Journeys Toward Gender Equality in Islam, published in 2022 with OneWorld Publications. If you’re not familiar with Ziba’s other work, I highly recommend it! She’s author of other books, like these two I have on my bookshelf, Islam and gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran, and she’s editor, co-editor, of Men in Charge? [with a question mark!]: Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition. I have a review of the latter book on my blog that I’ll link to in the video description here.

So what I’m going to do here first is to give you a brief intro to the book, some of the main themes covered, and then in the next video, you’ll get to hear from the author herself.

Script: A Love Letter to Muslims Who Don’t Fast/Pray | What the Patriarchy?!

Script below the video.

Same-Sex Intimacy / Homosexuality in Islam: A Summary of Ch. 5 of Kecia’s Ali’s Sexual Ethics & Islam | What the Patriarchy?!

My latest video is up! Script below the video.

In this episode, we discuss chapter 5 of Kecia Ali’s book Sexual Ethics & Islam, which is on same-sex relations/intimacy in Muslim thought. I do share some of my own opinions and interpretations on homosexuality/lgbtq+ justice in Islam, but to keep this short, I didn’t very much – so we’ll be back!

I’ve written a lot on this topic on my blog. Here are two such links:

– Islam, Homosexuality, and Pederasty: what does Islam really say about homosexuality?

– To Muslims who condemn homosexuality

Video Script: Menstruation & Islam: prayer, hajj, & fasting while on your period

Below is the script for my YouTube video on menstruation.

Hello, everyone! And assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa barakaatuhu! Welcome to #WhatThePatriarchy where we are planning the destruction of the patriarchy from its roots. Thank you for joining me today.