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WOMEN’S ISSUES IN AMERICAN ISLAM l 619 rallied and lobbied, along with men, for the rights of Palestinians under Israel rule, Bosnians during the Serb assault, and Iraqis suffering from economic sanctions. The victimization of women in such situations has been an area of particular concern for many American Muslim women’s organizations. For example, in 1992, after learning about the enslavement of Bosnian Muslim women in Serbian rape camps, a group of Muslim women established an organization called Women in Islam (WII). Women in Islam was based in New York City in order to establish a presence close to the United Nations. WII director Aisha al-Adawiya was present at the 1995 Beijing Women’s Summit, and the group has won official nongovernmental organization (NGO) status at the United Nations. Another Muslim women’s organization established to address national and international issues of human rights is Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights. Founded by lawyers and academics Azizah alHibri and Asifa Quraishi, Karamah is particularly focused on abuses of women’s rights perpetrated in the name of Islam. Al-Hibri and Quraishi have written critiques , for example, of Taliban rule in Afghanistan and Pakistani rape laws. The organization’s priority, however , is to help solve Islamic legal issues that are particularly problematic for American Muslim women. For example, the group has written about the problems impeding a just interpretation of Islamic marriage contracts in American courts. Describing their agenda they write, When we talk of human rights abuse, we often direct our attention to governments and institutions . We must not forget, however, that the most basic of our rights emerge within our private and our domestic spheres. KARAMAH is founded upon the idea that education, dialogue, and action can counter the dangerous and destructive effects of ignorance, silence, and prejudice. The Muslim women lawyers and legal scholars of Karamah generally try to draw upon the methodology of traditional Islamic jurisprudence to argue for Muslim women’s rights. A number of other Muslim women’s organizations have a more secular orientation or draw upon controversial modern revisionist interpretations of Islamic law. Perhaps the most prominent of these organizations is the Muslim Women’s League (MWL) of southern California, under the leadership of physician Laila al-Marayati. The MWL’s publications convey a sense of urgency regarding the circumstances in which many Muslim women live. They decry the fact that religion is often used to justify a limitation on Muslim women’s opportunities for education, economic independence , and simple self-preservation. They write, To all those who are committed to the Islamic principles of justice and truth, we call upon you to join us in our efforts by organizing similar groups in your community, participating in Muslim as well as non-Muslim organizations that are part of this struggle, educating yourselves and others about Islam, and by working together without divisiveness and ill-will. Dr. al-Mariati and the MWL have received a significant amount of support and attention from nonMuslim activist and political organizations. Whether they will be able to affect the Muslim community as deeply as they desire remains to be seen, given that their ideological approach to Islamic law and normative discourse is often considered unorthodox. There is no doubt, however, that American Muslim women in general are determined to join together and to join with sympathetic Muslim men and non-Muslims to realize their full humanity within the broad context of Islamic tradition. SOURCES: See the following Web sites: Islamic Networks Group, at http://www.ing.org/; Women in Islam, at http:// womeninislam.org/; Karamah, at http://www.karamah.org/; and Muslim Women’s League, at http://www.mwlusa.org/. For the early history of Muslims in America, see Sylviane Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (1998). WOMEN’S ISSUES IN AMERICAN ISLAM Jane I. Smith AMERICAN MUSLIMS IN the United States and Canada comprise a rich, complex, and extremely diverse population of somewhere around 6 million. They are immigrants from a variety of countries as well as indigenous Americans, representing many races and ethnic/ cultural groups, speaking a range of languages, and often choosing to present themselves in very different ways. The first Muslims to immigrate to America came from Syria and Lebanon in the late 1800s. By the early 1900s their numbers had increased, and they began to form small struggling communities across the country. Immigrant Muslims now represent over sixty nations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East...

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