num_pages: 352
description: 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 womens 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 womens rights in a growing movement of Islamic feminism.In this timely book Coleman journeys through the strategic crescent of the greater Middle EastSaudi Arabia Iraq Iran Afghanistan and Pakistanto 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 womens 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 Iraqs religiously charged environment. These quiet revolutionaries are using Islamic feminism to change the terms of religious debate to fight for womens rights within Islam instead of against it.There is no mistaking that women and womens 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 happeningand more often than not it is being led by women.
language: English
title: Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East
publisher: Random House