Muslim women achieved success and visibility unmatched elsewhere

[Ancient lion]

Muslim Women Gain Higher Profile in U.S.

These women have achieved a level of success and visibility unmatched elsewhere. They say they are molded by the freedoms of the United States — indeed, many unabashedly sing its praises — and by the intellectual ferment stirred when American-born and immigrant Muslims mix.

“What we’re seeing now in America is what has been sort of a quiet or informal empowerment of women,” said Shireen Zaman, executive director of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a nonprofit research institute founded after the 2001 attacks to provide research on American Muslims. “In many of our home countries, socially or politically it would’ve been harder for Muslim women to take a leadership role. It’s actually quite empowering to be Muslim in America.”

As Najah Bazzy, a American-born nurse and founder of several charities in Michigan, put it: “Yeah I’m Arab, yeah I’m very American, and yeah I’m very Islamic, but you put those things in the blender and I’m no longer just a thing. I’m a new thing.”

It is not always easy. Several of the Muslim women interviewed for this article said they had been the object of abusive letters, e-mails or blog posts.

Yet in their quest to break stereotypes, America’s Muslim women have advantages. They are better educated than counterparts in Western Europe, and also than the average American, according to a Gallup survey in March 2009. In contrast to their sisters in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, they are just as likely as their menfolk to attend religious services, which equates to greater influence. And Gallup found that Muslim American women, often entrepreneurial, come closer than women of any other faith to earning what their menfolk do.

“Muslims coming to North America are often seeking an egalitarian version of Islam,” said Ebrahim Moosa, an associate professor of Islamic studies at Duke University. “That forces women onto the agenda and makes them much more visible than, say, in Western Europe.”

Besides her speakers’ bureau, which advertises itself as “a bridge between Islam and Americans of other faiths,” Ms. Khalifa heads a consultancy working with students, executives, soldiers and even the F.B.I. to overcome stereotypes. Some people she addresses have never met a Muslim. Some look askance at head scarves.

nytimes.com/2010/12/28/world/middleeast/28iht-muslim28.html

quran.com/4/124-125:
"And whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer - those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed.
And who is better in religion than one who submits himself to Allah while being a doer of good and follows the religion of Abraham, inclining toward truth? And Allah took Abraham as an intimate friend"

 

[Marc39]

Westernized Muslimas have an advantage over the majority of Muslimas in Muslim countries in that they are secular, to a great extent, and are not strict adherents to the tenets of Islam that have been holding the rest of the Muslim world behind, such as hatred for non-Muslims and an inability to transition out of the Middle Ages.

In contrast, fully 50% of all Arab women, most of whom are Muslimas, are illiterate and languishing in abject poverty.

The best antidote for the failure of Islam is Westernization of the cult.

 

[Intense]

Westernized Muslimas have an advantage over the majority of Muslimas in Muslim countries in that they are secular, to a great extent, and are not strict adherents to the tenets of Islam that have been holding the rest of the Muslim world behind, such as hatred for non-Muslims and an inability to transition out of the Middle Ages.

In contrast, fully 50% of all Arab women, most of whom are Muslimas, are illiterate and languishing in abject poverty.

The best antidote for the failure of Islam is Westernization of the cult.

Nice of you to see that Western influence does effect real change.

 

[High_Gravity]

Westernized Muslimas have an advantage over the majority of Muslimas in Muslim countries in that they are secular, to a great extent, and are not strict adherents to the tenets of Islam that have been holding the rest of the Muslim world behind, such as hatred for non-Muslims and an inability to transition out of the Middle Ages.In contrast, fully 50% of all Arab women, most of whom are Muslimas, are illiterate and languishing in abject poverty.

The best antidote for the failure of Islam is Westernization of the cult.

That is spot on.