MARTINA LUTHER:

Muslim women take charge of their faith (Marlise Simons, 12/01/05, International Herald Tribune)

[Hanife] Karakus, 24, does not call herself a feminist; she simply says she is a French lawyer. But she qualifies as part of the quiet revolution spreading among young European Muslim women, a new generation that claims the same rights as their Western sisters while not renouncing Islamic principles.

For many, the key is education, an option often denied their mothers and grandmothers. These daughters of the poor immigrants from mostly Muslim countries are moving into universities, studying law, medicine and anthropology. They are getting jobs in social work, in schools, offices, business and media. French, English, German or Dutch may be their native languages.

Unlike their homebound elders, these emancipated Muslim women use the Internet and spend hours in the proliferating Islamic chat rooms. Web sites are now favorite trysting places, a chance for risk-free "halal dating" - that is, interacting with men in a way that violates no social or religious codes.

In the crowded immigrant suburbs ringing Paris, the scene of recent riots mostly led by young Muslim males, teachers say female students are the most motivated because they have the most to gain.