This is a study of Chinese Hui Muslim women's historic and unrelenting spiritual, educational, political and gendered drive for an institutional presence in Islamic worship and leadership: 'a mosque of one's own' as a unique feature of Chinese Muslim culture. The authors place the historical origin of women's segregated religious institutions in the Chinese Islamic diaspora's fight for survival, and in their crucial contribution to the cause of ethnic/religious minority identity and solidarity. Against the presentation of complex historical developments of women's own site of worship and learning, the authors open out to contemporary problems of sexual politics within the wider society of socialist China and beyond to the history of Islam in all its cultural diversity.

This debut novel by a Palestinian-American voice takes us inside the lives of a conservative Arab family living in America. In Brooklyn, eighteen-year-old Deya is starting to meet with suitors. Though she doesn’t want to get married, her grandparents give her no choice. History is repeating itself: Deya’s mother, Isra, also had no choice when she left Palestine as a teenager to marry Adam. Though Deya was raised to believe her parents died in a car accident, a secret note from a mysterious, yet familiar-looking woman makes Deya question everything she was told about her past. As the narrative alternates between the lives of Deya and Isra, she begins to understand the dark, complex secrets behind her community.

In a post-9/11 world, many Americans conflate the mainstream Muslim majority with the beliefs and actions of an extremist minority. But what do the world’s Muslims think about the West, or about democracy, or about extremism itself? Who Speaks for Islam? spotlights this silenced majority. The book is the product of a mammoth six-year study in which the Gallup Organization conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations — urban and rural, young and old, men and women, educated and illiterate. It asks the questions everyone is curious about: Why is the Muslim world so anti-American? Who are the extremists? Is democracy something Muslims really want? What do Muslim women want? The answers to these and other pertinent, provocative questions are provided not by experts, extremists, or talking heads, but by empirical evidence — the voices of a billion Muslims.

Abdul Wahid Hamid This book highlights aspects of the lives of thirty Companions of the Prophet, some famous, others almost completely unknown. Here the trials and triumphs of the early Muslims as individuals are well-portrayed. Their various paths to Islam - sometimes direct, sometimes long and tortuous, their devotion to the noble Prophet, their endeavours in peace time and their exploits in war - all serve to cast them in a heroic mould. This is the first of two (formerly published as a series of three) books based on original Arabic sources and written in a style that is lively and often gripping. The lives of the Sahabah or Companions of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, is a rich storehouse of knowledge, guidance and inspiration. The men and women whose stories are told here helped to lay the foundations of a new world order, and it is only fitting that they should be more widely known

This challenging new book reviews the ethics at the heart of the Islamic legal system, and suggests that these laws have been misinterpreted by certain sources in an attempt to control women.

An investigative journalist uncovers a hidden custom that will transform your understanding of what it means to grow up as a girl.

In Afghanistan, a culture ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of a son is cause for celebration and the arrival of a daughter is often mourned as misfortune. A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as "dressed up like a boy") is a third kind of child – a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world. Jenny Nordberg, the reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times, constructs a powerful and moving account of those secretly living on the other side of a deeply segregated society where women have almost no rights and little freedom.

The Underground Girls of Kabul is anchored by vivid characters who bring this remarkable story to life: Azita, a female parliamentarian who sees no other choice but to turn her fourth daughter Mehran into a boy; Zahra, the tomboy teenager who struggles with puberty and refuses her parents' attempts to turn her back into a girl; Shukria, now a married mother of three after living for twenty years as a man; and Nader, who prays with Shahed, the undercover female police officer, as they both remain in male disguise as adults.

At the heart of this emotional narrative is a new perspective on the extreme sacrifices of Afghan women and girls against the violent backdrop of America's longest war. Divided into four parts, the book follows those born as the unwanted sex in Afghanistan, but who live as the socially favored gender through childhood and puberty, only to later be forced into marriage and childbirth. The Underground Girls of Kabul charts their dramatic life cycles, while examining our own history and the parallels to subversive actions of people who live under oppression everywhere.

Over the last fifteen years, there have been an increasing number of middle- and upper-class urban Pakistani women actively turning toward Islam via Al-Huda, an Islamic school for women that aims to transform the women who absorb its message into "pious" subjects. Established in the early 1990s, Al-Huda is unique in its ability to attract a following among these women, a feat other religious groups have been unsuccessful in accomplishing.

In Transforming Faith, Sadaf Ahmad deftly explores the multiple reasons behind Al-Huda’s success among a new generation of educated, urban, middle-class women. She presents an engrossing and sensitive account of how the school’s persuasive teaching methods have combined with and built upon women’s faith, and the impact this has on them, their families and the larger society. As a woman of Pakistani origin, Ahmad offers an in-depth look at the students and members of Al-Huda in ways that a cultural outsider would be excluded from doing.

Ahmad’s groundbreaking work demonstrates Al-Huda’s ever-widening teachings and influence in Pakistan and in its recent global extensions. More broadly, this book illuminates how Al-Huda uses the trappings of modernity to engage educated women in a kind of religious study that transforms their ideology, behavior, and lifestyle within a particular Islamic framework. Because of Al-Huda’s teachings, Pakistani society is changing, as is the rest of the Muslim world.

The Ideal Muslimah is proud of the great position that Islam has given her among humanity. She performs her duties knowing that her role is clearly defined and that her rights are still, even today, greater than any other ideology has provided. She is a woman of moral excellence, true to her nature, not confused by alien and morally bankrupt ideas. She preserves her self-respect and dignity through her piety in obedience to Allah (SWT) and His Messenger (PBUH). She is the role model that every true believer hopes to emulate. This comprehensive work by Dr. Al-Hashimi is a valuable contribution for our English readers who will find the knowledge contained therein truly beneficial and inspiring.

Like Brick Lane and The Kite Runner , Camilla Gibb's widely praised new novel is a poignant and intensely atmospheric look beyond the stereotypes of Islam. After her hippie British parents are murdered, Lilly is raised at a Sufi shrine in Morocco. As a young woman she goes on pilgrimage to Harar, Ethiopia, where she teaches Qur'an to children and falls in love with an idealistic doctor. But even swathed in a traditional headscarf, Lilly can't escape being marked as a foreigner. Forced to flee Ethiopia for England, she must once again confront the riddle of who she is and where she belongs.

“Eye-opening in terms of the parity between the Abrahamic faiths, this fine model of scriptural analysis merits study by mystics of any faith.” Kirkus Reviews This book is a follow-up to A perspective on the Signs of Through the Prism of the Heart. Here the heart leads the mind on a journey into the eighteenth chapter of the Holy Quran. This chapter, known as Surah Kahf, has captivated seekers across the ages for its living spiritual appeal. Meeting of two Seas is about a journey which Moses undertakes with Khidr. Though this journey is short, it continues to open doors to others, through our awakening to the meetings of many sets of two seas around The meeting of the manifested real and the hidden Real; the meeting of the temporal and the eternal; the meeting of the empirical with the spiritual; and the meeting of physical causes with the Spiritual Cause. Our consciousness too stands at the nexus of the seas of our very own inner and outer selves. When the heart and the mind come to a meld—the coming together of taddabur and taffakur—there is no turning back and no end to the joyous journey toward the shores and sea of the Arabic Quran. The i’jaz of the Quran is its unfathomable ability to lead us to a scent of the REAL and toward a sense of belonging to IT.

When was the last time you heard a Muslim woman speak for herself without a filter?
In 2016, Mariam Khan read that David Cameron had linked the radicalization of Muslim men to the ‘traditional submissiveness’ of Muslim women. Mariam felt pretty sure she didn’t know a single Muslim woman who would describe herself that way. Why was she hearing about Muslim women from people who were neither Muslim, nor female?
Years later the state of the national discourse has deteriorated even further, and Muslim women’s voices are still pushed to the fringes – the figures leading the discussion are white and male.
Taking one of the most politicized and misused words associated with Muslim women and Islamophobia, It’s Not About the Burqa is poised to change all that. Here are voices you won’t see represented in the national news headlines: seventeen Muslim women speaking frankly about the hijab and wavering faith, about love and divorce, about feminism, queer identity, sex, and the twin threats of a disapproving community and a racist country. Funny, warm, sometimes sad, and often angry, each of these essays is a passionate declaration, and each essay is calling time on the oppression, the lazy stereotyping, the misogyny and the Islamophobia.
What does it mean, exactly, to be a Muslim woman in the West today? According to the media, it’s all about the burqa.
Here’s what it’s really about.

Exploring the birth period of Islam, this biography focuses on one of the most prominent and respected Muslim women in history, Khadija, the wife of the Prophet Muhammad. Addressing both her devotion and her leadership roles in Mecca, this book shines light on a figure who is an inspiration to women, both Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

"An accessible biography of Muhammad, Islam’s founding prophet, tracing his development from orphan to political leader and providing insights into his personal life and tastes." — New York Times Book Review

"A fresh telling of a familiar story...The result is a biography that reads like a novel."— Washington Post

“A joyous read, presenting the Prophet Muhammad both as human and humane. Insightful, thoughtful and thought provoking!” — Azar Nafisi, New York Times bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran

“A beautifully written, immaculately researched meditation on the impact of the Prophet Muhammad on the modern world. I loved this book!” — Reza Aslan, author of No God but God and Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

A six-year-old cries in his mother’s arms as she draws her last breaths to urge him: “Muhammad, be a world-changer!” The boy, suddenly orphaned in a tribal society that fears any change, must overcome enormous obstacles to unleash his own potential and inspire others to do the same.

Fusing details long known to Muslim scholars but inaccessible to popular audiences, Mohamad Jebara brings to life the gripping personal story of Islam’s founding prophet. From his dramatic birth to nearly being abducted into slavery to escaping assassination, Muhammad emerges as an unrelenting man on a mission. Surrounding the protagonist are dynamic women who nurture Muhammad; Jewish and Christian mentors who inspire him; and the enslaved individuals he helps liberate who propel his movement.

Jebara places Muhammad’s life in a broader historical context, vividly evoking the Meccan society he was born into and arguing that his innovative vision helped shape our modern world.

"This excellent biography presents a unique and personal perspective." — Booklist

"Accessible... Those looking for an introduction to the life of the Islamic prophet would do well to start here."— Publishers Weekly

“This book is truly unique—in its enchanting prose, reverent secularity, and thought-provoking revisionism. For anyone curious about the amazing life and legacy of this seminal figure, this book is highly recommended—even for those who think they already know it well.” — Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at Cato Institute, author of Reopening Muslim Minds

“A vivid and beautifully written book that is both inspiring and well-researched. Readers will be in awe at how Jebara describes the Prophet Muhammad’s many inspiring and overlooked acts in service to humanity – as an entrepreneur, philosopher, statesman, husband, humanitarian, and father, among other roles." — Dr. Craig Considine, author of The Humanity of Muhammad: A Christian View

"A rare literary treat...Jebara treats his namesake, the prophet Muhammad, as a human and historical figure, distilling a wealth of compelling information while deftly treading sensitive ground.” — Nadim Shehadi, Executive Director, Lebanese American University Academic Center, New York

“A religious icon long shrouded in both myth and stigma at last receives the biography he deserves. Jebara’s mastery of classical Arabic and Islamic scholarship enables him to reveal an authentic human narrative of Muhammad’s life.” — Captain Barbara Helms, first female Muslim military chaplain in the British commonwealth

“Jebara, a once-in-a-generation elucidator, brings his namesake’s visionary spirit to life as never before. Offers an inspiring portrait of Islam’s founder that serves as a vital tool for enhancing interfaith coexistence.” — Jason Guberman, American Sephardi Federation

“Jebara spotlights the many women who mentored Muhammad, including his mother, his wife Khadijah, and Barakah—the slave he emancipated at age six. Erudite and poetic, the narrative immerses readers in the Prophet’s life, leaving them craving to know more. A must-read.” — Rana Bokhari, former head of the Manitoba Liberal Party

“Via Jebara’s soaring prose, readers join Muhammad on an epic life journey that transforms how they view the world.” — Rev. Father Andre Boyer, Former Superior of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate

“Scholarly yet accessible, this book touches the heart and the mind--helping advance peacemaking our world so desperately needs.” — The Venerable Mavis Brownlee, Archdeacon in the Anglican Church of Canada (retired)

“Brings this icon to life as never before.” — Prof. Stuart Chambers, University of Ottawa

"This book will transport you to an ancient time, yet you will sense human emotions as contemporary as our own. This book inspires us to be world-changers." — Rev. Takouhi Demirdjian-Petro, first Armenian woman minister ordained in Canada by the United Church.

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Over the centuries and throughout the world, women have struggled for equality and basic rights. Their challenge in the Middle East has been intensified by the rise of a political Islam that too often condemns women’s empowerment as Western cultural imperialism or, worse, anti-Islamic. In Paradise Beneath Her Feet , Isobel Coleman shows how Muslim women and men are fighting back with progressive interpretations of Islam to support women’s rights in a growing movement of Islamic feminism.

In this timely book, Coleman journeys through the strategic crescent of the greater Middle East—Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan—to reveal how activists are working within the tenets of Islam to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women. Coleman argues that these efforts are critical to bridging the conflict between those championing reform and those seeking to oppress women in the name of religious tradition. Success will bring greater stability and prosperity to the Middle East and stands to transform the region.
   
Coleman highlights a number of Muslim men and women who are among the most influential Islamic feminist thinkers, and brilliantly illuminates the on-the-ground experiences of women who are driving Sakena Yacoobi, an Afghan educator, runs more than forty women’s centers across Afghanistan, providing hundreds of thousands of women with literacy and health classes and teaching them about their rights within Islam. Madawi al-Hassoon, a successful businesswoman, is challenging conservative conventions to break new ground for Saudi professional women. Salama al-Khafaji, a devout dentist-turned-politician, relies on moderate interpretations of Islam to promote opportunities for women in Iraq’s religiously charged environment. These quiet revolutionaries are using Islamic feminism to change the terms of religious debate, to fight for women’s rights within Islam instead of against it.

There is no mistaking that women and women’s issues are very much on the front lines of a war that is taking place between advocates of innovation, tolerance, and plurality and those who use violence to reject modernity in Muslim communities around the world. Ultimately,  Paradise Beneath Her Feet offers a message of Change is happening—and more often than not, it is being led by women.

Living Islam Out Loud presents the first generation of American Muslim women who have always identified as both American and Muslim. These pioneers have forged new identities for themselves and for future generations, and they speak out about the hijab, relationships, sex and sexuality, activism, spirituality, and much more.

Su'ad Abdul-Khabeer, Sham-e-Ali al-Jamil, Samina Ali, Sarah Eltantawi, Yousra Y. Fazili, Suheir Hammad, Mohja Kahf, Precious Rasheeda Muhammad, Asra Q. Nomani, Manal Omar, Khalida Saed, Asia Sharif-Clark, Khadijah Sharif-Drinkard, Aroosha Zoq Rana, Inas Younis

The Scimitar and the Veil portrays over thirty extraordinary Muslim women from the birth of Islam through the 19th century. From scholars to warriors to concubines and queens, The Scimitar and the Veil gathers scholarship about the women of Islam into one fascinating book presented for a general readership. Based on sources ranging from Swahili lore to Persian pageant plays to Muslim feminist writings to the explorations of Western scholars of Islam, The Scimitar and the Veil is written in a poetic, sometimes humorous, energetic and contemporary style that will appeal to a broad range of readers. Muhammad was born to a widowed mother, tended by a slave woman, and fostered by a Bedouin woman. His marriage to Khadija, a wealthy businesswoman from Mecca was long, fruitful, and faithful. She was the first to convert to Islam. From Barakah, Muhammad's surrogate mother, and Fatima, his cherished daughter, to the Sufi mystic Rabi'a, The Scimitar and the Veil is the first popular history and overview of Muslim women and their great accomplishments. While there are other books about women in Islam, The Scimitar and the Veil is the most comprehensive and written in a style meant to appeal to a general audience. †

"An original contribution to a subject which is currently of much interest to the world at large, East or West, and has an important bearing on the position of women in the societies in which veiling is practiced."--The Middle East Journal "Highly recommended. . . . It draws on and contributes to current feminist theorizing in Middle East women's studies and in broader feminist academic circles."--International Journal of Middle East Studies "A welcome contribution to Middle Eastern and women's studies, providing an innovating approach and research to a highly controversial issue in gender politics."--Digest of Middle East Studies An insightful and provocative book. . . . [It] leads to a better understanding of the veil and a debunking of current clichés." -Farzaneh Milani, University of Virginia Illustrated with photographs, drawings, and cartoons gathered from popular culture, this provocative book demonstrates that the veil, the garment known in Islamic cultures as the hijab, holds within its folds a semantic versatility that goes far beyond current clichés and homogenous representations. Whether seen as erotic or romantic, a symbol of oppression or a sign of piety, modesty, or purity, the veil carries thousands of years of religious, sexual, social, and political significance. Using examples from both the East and West-including Persian poetry, American erotica, Iranian and Indian films, and government-sanctioned posters-Faegheh Shirazi shows that the veil has become a ubiquitous symbol, utilized as a profitable marketing tool for diverse enterprises, from Penthouse magazine to Saudi advertising companies. She argues that perceptions of the veil change with the cultural context of its use as well as over in a Hindi movie the veil draws in the male gaze, in an Iranian movie it denies it; photographs of veiled women in Playboy aim to titillate a principally male audience, while cartoons of veiled women in the same magazine mock and ridicule Muslim society. Shirazi concludes that the practice of veiling, encompassing an amazingly rich array of meanings, has often become a screen upon which different people in different cultures project their dreams and nightmares.

Extraordinary Women from the Muslim World is an illustrative introduction to 13 Muslim women in history who have lived extraordinary lives and influenced their communities in a positive way, often overcoming extreme hardship and inaccurate stereotypes that have been placed on the role of women in Islam. The profits from the book will be donated to charities helping women and children in Western Sudan.

This work is an attempt at dispelling any misconception by bringing into focus biographies of the first generation of Muslim women and the important role they played in the overall development of their society, right from the beginning.