Believing Women In Islam Caabu book launch with author, Asma Barlas

Caabu would like to invite you to a book launch with author Asma Barlas, on her book Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an,published by Saqi books.   

When: Wednesday 3 July 2019, 12:00

Where: Boardroom, The Arab British Centre, 1 Gough Square, London EC4A 3DE. Click here for directions.

RSVP is essential. Please confirm your attendance with Joseph Willits (willitsj@caabu.org). 

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Copies of the book will be sold at the event, but you can also purchase it from Saqi Books here.

About the book 

Does Islam call for the oppression of women? The subjugation of women in many Muslim countries is often used as evidence of this, while many Muslims read the Qur'an in ways that seem to justify sexual oppression and inequality. In this paradigm-shifting book, Asma Barlas argues that, far from supporting male privilege, the Qur'an actually affirms the complete equality of the sexes.

Offering a historical analysis of religious authority and knowledge, Barlas shows how Muslims for centuries have read patriarchy into the Qur'an to justify existing religious and social structures. In this groundbreaking volume, she takes readers into the
heart of Islamic teachings on women, gender and patriarchy, allowing for an understanding of Islam through its most sacred scripture. Readers of this seminal text will learn to question patriarchal dogma, and see that an egalitarian reading of the Qur'an is not only possible but, for myriad reasons, more plausible.  

About the speaker

Asma Barlasis a Pakistani-American writer and academic. She is currently a professor of politics at Ithaca College. Barlas was previously the founding director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Race and Ethnicity at Ithaca College for twelve years, and held the Spinoza Chair in Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. Her other books include Re-understanding Islam: A Double Critique and Islam, Muslims, and the US: Essays on Religion and Politics.

More can be found on her Ithaca College biography here.

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