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.

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

Video Script: Summary of Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics & Islam – Ch 4: Illicit Sex | What the Patriarchy?!

Link to the video here, script below.

Video Script: Summary of Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics & Islam – Chs. 2 & 3: Divorce and Slavery in Islam | What the Patriarchy?!

The next video in this series (on Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics & Islam) is up finally! Script below the video:

Bi-smi llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm.

Hello, salaam, and welcome to #whatthepatriarchy?! where we are working to completely uproot the patriarchy from Islam. #inshaAllah #onebookatatime. One feminist book at a time.

Today, we’re continuing our discussion of Kecia Ali’s classic Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence. This is the 2016 edition. Originally published in 2006. I recommend the 2016 edition because it’s more updated and revised. You’ll recall, of course, that I promised to do a few episodes on this book instead of just one like we’ve been doing with the last few books that we’ve done so far. So in the last episode, we talked about the main points of the book, the Introduction, and Chapter 1, which was on all things marriage. In this episode, we’re going to cover chapter 2 on divorce and chapter 3, which is on slavery and slave concubinage or sexual slavery or just the idea of a man being allowed to sleep with a woman that he is enslaving, formerly known as “his female slave” but we don’t use that language anymore.

My Interview with Ayesha Chaudhry on The Colour of God (Oneworld, 2021)

If you haven’t read it yet or heard about it yet, there’s an excellent book by Ayesha Chaudhry that just came out. I had the complete joy of interviewing her for it for the New Books Network. It’s the only book I’ve ever read that I could connect so wholly with. It’s relatable in so many ways, and it was such a necessary read for me at a time when I’m working on healing from so much that’s happening in my short life. If you’re a Brown girl, Muslim, immigrant, religious person, a feminist, anti-white supremacy (or anti supremacy of any kind), justice-loving person, this book will speak to you. It’s so real, so unapologetic, packed with wisdom and brilliant insights on every page, answers to questions about how to live a feminist life, how to live a religious life.