What we argue in the piece is that the headscarf has become a political symbol for an ideology of Islam that is exported to the world by the theocracies of the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Just like the… — Asra Nomani Copy Share Image
What we are saying is we have to be smart about the ideology that is putting this idea into the world that a woman must be defined by her idea of modesty, that she is the vessel for honor in a community. And I believe that we have to be very pragmatic, too, about the consequence of this. Women in… — Asra Nomani Copy Share
When we think about Islamic feminism, it is not just about women's rights. It's about a more progressive and tolerant expression of Islam in… — Asra Nomani Copy Share Image
Very interestingly in a movement that I call now the hijab lobby, sadly promulgated by women that some of us refer to as Muslim… — Asra Nomani Copy Share Image
I think that we don't have, here in the Middle East or in Africa, as much threat to our physical and economic livelihood as women in other parts of the world. But the continuum is the same. The pressures on women to fit into a certain image of a good Muslim girl is the same. The controls and rules are… — Asra Nomani Copy Share
Personally I get so much of my inspiration from women in other countries, so I don't feel like American women are the leaders and I don't agree with the notion that Americans can accomplish more or do more. But I do think that what we can uniquely do here in America is mobilize and galvanize a lot of these ideas… — Asra Nomani Copy Share
I was born in 1965. When I grew up in India, there was no expectation that a good Muslim woman wore the headscarf. But… — Asra Nomani Copy Share Image
Talk to me 20 years ago and I had a complete sense of illegitimacy as an American Muslim. I felt like I wasn't authentic.… — Asra Nomani Copy Share Image
There is a fundamental flaw in interpretations of sharia that say a woman or man should be punished for sex outside of marriage — Asra Nomani Copy Share Image
It's true that in a lot of western feminist movements, you see women working singularly from men. Suffragettes and the women's rights movement in… — Asra Nomani Copy Share Image
The hijab or a variation of the word shows up eight times in the Quran. And it never means headscarf. And so what's happened… — Asra Nomani Copy Share Image