JEDDAH, 17 August 2007 — A number of Saudi women participated with other Muslim women from around the world in a leadership program earlier this month on Capitol Hill and George Washington University with the aim of empowering Muslim women to promote peaceful change in their communities.
Twenty-five Muslim women from various countries participated in a three-week Law and Leadership Summer Program (LLSP) designed to educate them about legal issues and conflict-resolution techniques. The annual program is organized by Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights (Karamah), a non-governmental organization.
“The leadership-development education we provide is intended to make our participants better leaders in their own professions, society and family,” said Azizah Al-Hibri, law professor at the University of Richmond and founder and president of Karamah.
“We base our leadership education on Islamic values. This education also helps them in interacting with non-Muslim women from around the world who may be ignorant of what Islam really stands for, and how many rights it really guarantees to women. Our participants are well-positioned to counter stereotypes about Muslim women by both education and example.”
Al-Hibri would not name the participants to protect their privacy but she said they come from different walks of life, some are university students and others are teachers or lawyers or doctors.
“Needless to say, Saudi participants do not usually need basic Islamic education, but others from around the world do,” she said. “The presence of Saudi participants helps raise the level of discussion within the classroom, and hence enhances the Islamic education of the class as a whole. At the same time, they get leadership development skills provided by renowned professionals.”
One of the presentations was by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a scholar of Islam at George Washington University, on how Islamic law provides for principles such as freedom of expression, freedom of association and the right to own property regardless of gender. He said that violations of women’s rights in many Muslim countries should not be blamed on Islamic law but on respective governments.
“What we need is a kind of Islamic feminine movement, not feminist, to clarify, first of all, what are the Qur’anic and Hadith rights of Muslim women,” he said. Secondly, how Islam sees the function of women. They do not have to be like in the West. Nobody said that American women are very happy to be superwomen, doing 10 things at the same time.”
The program also included professors from the Wharton School of Business.
“The students loved this part of the course which helps them learn how to be active in society in a cooperative, positive and non-confrontational manner,” said Al-Hibri to Arab News. “We believe that Islamic leadership is about unity and not divisiveness. We try to impart these Islamic leadership values to our participants.”
