For several years, an informal group of Muslim women from around the world has met to
spur discussion among Muslims everywhere about the rights of women. Now, with the shadow
of a repressive Islamic regime in Afghanistan hovering over the debate, the group has
produced a manual on the rights of women under Islam.
Intended to be adaptable to a wide range of cultures at the grass-roots level, the new
publication, "Claiming Our Rights: A Manual for Women's Human Rights Education in
Muslim Societies," will be tested over the next year in five very different
countries: Bangladesh, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia and Uzbekistan.
The plan is to assemble discussion groups to exchange ideas on the subject. There has
already been a quiet trial run among a group of university women in Iran.
"There is a great change in self-awareness among women in Muslim societies,"
said Mahnaz Afkhami, executive director of the Sisterhood Is Global Institute, a private
organization based in Bethesda, Md.
Ms. Afkhami directed the effort on the manual, which the institute produced with the help
of the National Endowment for Democracy and the Ford Foundation.
Sometimes at great risk to themselves, women are making gains, though frequently small and
fragile. But developments like the introduction of more egalitarian family laws in North
Africa often go unnoticed, Ms. Afkhami said, because militants and fundamentalists
dominate contemporary images of Islam.
"This very sound-bite-friendly Islamicist movement doesn't allow the other side to be
heard," she said in an interview. "But women are often the center of debate,
even in Iran."
Ms. Afkhami, who was minister for women's affairs in the government of the last Shah of
Iran, Mohammed Riza Pahlevi, has strong critics among Islamic women because of that. And
she is aware that promoting women's rights from a base outside the Muslim world attracts
the criticism that the campaign is Western and alien.
"We are not confrontational," she said. "Our manual is Islam-based and not
threatening. Our hope is that we can get people to engage in dialogue."
The manual on women's rights in Islam -- which is being published in Arabic, Bengali,
Malay, Persian and Uzbek as well as English -- contains instructions for conducting
grass-roots discussions. It also includes sometimes provocative passages from the Koran --
like those about a husband's punishment of an "ill-behaved" wife -- and the
Hadith, the often-disputed collection of teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as recorded by
religious leaders centuries later.
Juxtaposed are texts of major international agreements on human rights, particularly
women's rights, which many Muslim nations have signed.
The book briefly profiles four women it calls "the first heroines of Islam": two
wives of Mohammed; his daughter Fatima, and Zainab, the sister of a Shiite leader who went
into battle and successfully pleaded with a victorious enemy to spare her brother's life
in defeat.
There is also a sampling of Arab proverbs about women, a bibliography, and the names,
addresses and telephone and fax numbers of women's rights groups throughout the Islamic
world.
Women who contributed to the manual brought a range of experiences to bear, Ms. Afkhami
said. In Bangladesh, where grass-roots women's groups are strong and women are well
represented in politics, there is an interest in more sophisticated political training at
the local level.
In Uzbekistan, women are concerned that the process of sloughing off the Soviet system
could allow the adoption of a fundamentalist order in the name of Uzbek nationalism, with
the consequent loss of the considerable rights Muslim women enjoyed under communism.
In Malaysia, where the equality of women has been fostered by the government, several
women's organizations are engaged in scholarly revision of traditional Muslim laws and
practices to make them more relevant to the times. Islamic militancy has been largely
marginalized.
"Give women rights, let them participate -- that's the lesson of Malaysia," Ms.
Afkhami said. "The spirit of our religion is egalitarian. We can have a life of
civility, of plurality, that is respectful of the religion and draws on it."