The Qur'an -- Islam's sacred book -- offers Muslim women the same rights as men but traditionally has been misinterpreted, denying them those rights. That argument is convincingly made in a new book by a Muslim woman who is a scholar in Islamic foundations of education and identity development at Cornell.
The book, Woman's Identity and the Qur'an: A New Reading, is by Nimat Hafez Barazangi, a research fellow in Cornell's Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. ... The author hopes it will spark debate among American and other Muslims and broaden the way the Qur'an is interpreted. The author asserts that Muslim women have been generally excluded from equal agency, from full participation in Islamic society, and thus from full and equal Islamic identity, primarily because of patriarchal readings of the Qur'an, which dates back to the seventh century, and early Qur'anic literature. ... read more [Linda Myers, Cornell Chronicle] via Nimat Hafez Barazangi`s blog.

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