The treatment and role of women are among the most discussed and controversial aspects of Islam. The rights of Muslim women have become part of the Western political agenda, often perpetuating a stereotype of universal oppression. Muslim women living in America continue to be marginalized and misunderstood since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet their contributions are changing the face of Islam as it is seen both within Muslim communities in the West and by non-Muslims. In their public and private lives, Muslim women are actively negotiating what it means to be a woman and a Muslim in an American context. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Jane I. Smith, and Kathleen M. Moore offer a much-needed survey of the situation of Muslim American women, focusing on how Muslim views about and experiences of gender are changing in the Western diaspora. Centering on Muslims in America, the book investigates Muslim attempts to form a new "American" Islam. Such specific issues as dress, marriage, childrearing, conversion, and workplace discrimination are addressed. The authors also look at the ways in which American Muslim women have tried to create new paradigms of Islamic womanhood and are reinterpreting the traditions apart from the males who control the mosque institutions. A final chapter asks whether 9/11 will prove to have been a watershed moment for Muslim women in America. This groundbreaking work presents the diversity of Muslim American women and demonstrates the complexity of the issues. Impeccably researched and accessible, it broadens our understanding of Islam in the West and encourages further exploration into how Muslim women are shaping the future of American Islam.
Author
Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad (born in Syria in 1935) is Professor of the History of Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations at the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Her interests and focus include contemporary Islam; intellectual, social and political history in the Arab world; Islam in the West; Quranic Exegesis; and gender and Islam. Haddad's current research focuses on Muslims in the West and on Islamic Revolutionary Movements. She has published extensively in the field of Islamic studies. Haddad has been described as "at the top of her field in the study of Muslims in America" and "the foremost interpreter of the Islamic experience in the United States." She is the leading figure in a school of thought that sees the key issue for Muslims in the USA as being the conflict between traditional Islamic values and integration into mainstream US society. Haddad received her Ph.D. in the Economic, Political Development, and Islamic Heritage in 1979 from Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, and her Master's degree in Comparative History 1971 from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Additionally, she attended Boston University, where she received an M.R.E. in Religious Education and Leadership Development in 1966, and the Beirut College for Women in Lebanon. She was also Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Yvonne Haddad describes herself as a Presbyterian. She emigrated to the United States in 1963.
