I stumbled upon this show Thursday night at 11:30pm on PBS:
Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria | Where America Meets the World.

It was very interesting to hear 3 Muslims discussing the rights of women in Islam. Guests were Afeefa Syeed, who founded the Al-Fatih Academy, a Muslim school in Northern Virginia, and Irshad Manji, author of The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim?s Call for Reform in Her Faith. Manji has appeared on NOW.

Here in New Mexico, the show repeats at 5pm Friday on KNME Channel 5. However, it is also available on the Web (link above). The rest of the show is worthwhile, but this discussion of gender and religion is at the beginning and lasts 13 minutes. [Kudos for having transcripts and video available for free.]

You will see two women who seem so different and get a sense of a struggle for common ground over their shared faith. mjh

Here’s a snippet from the transcript (linked):

Show 4 Transcript | Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria

Irshad Manji: I find this very exciting because there?s a diversity of opinion and viewpoints among Muslim women and they?re going to be you know contesting one another which is in my view one of the things that needs to happen if we?re going to see the Islamic world as much more diverse than monolithic in the way that it has been for the last many, many generations. …

Fareed Zakaria: When people listen to you Irshad, I think there?s a tendency to wonder are you telling Americans what they want to hear.

Irshad Manji: [Laughs]

Fareed Zakaria: That is to say this sounds very comforting. Are you really a Muslim in that sense?

Irshad Manji: Well to many people I am not really a Muslim; that?s fine. I can tell you that you know I?ve done enough of my homework to know that when the first dissidents within Islam emerged from the woodwork only 100 years after Islam was established they, too, were accused not just of being real Muslims–or sorry–of not being real Muslims, but they were also accused of being in the pay of the Jews, and all kinds of conspiracy theories that still persist to this day. The thing though, Fareed, and I speak from hard experience here is that I know that the emerging generation of Muslims–not just in North America, but around the world, is desperate for debate and discussion–so much so that this was the number one reason that I had the emotional commitment and not just the intellectual commitment to write a book called The Trouble with Islam Today.

Fareed Zakaria: Is she a real Muslim?

Afeefa Syeed: Well only she and only God knows and that?s–that?s the essence of what being a Muslim is that you know the responsibilities between yourself and your creator. But I?d like to speak to the issue of representation and authenticity.

Irshad Manji: And I don?t represent–I don?t represent; I represent myself–no one else.
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Seat at the Table
Women in Congress/Parliament
Saudi Arabia: 0%
Iran: 4%
Pakistan: 21%
Iraq: 31%
US: 15%
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[If you enjoy programming like this, please be sure to read Republican Broadcasting Corporation by Ari Berman]