WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE FUNDAMENTAL:

Muslim women find an ally for more rights: the Koran: Courageous figures like Indonesia's Siti Musdah Mulia are showing Muslim women how to break out of bondage by using the Koran. (John Hughes, May 13, 2010 , CS Monitor)

Instead of blatantly waving the banner of democracy, certain to raise charges of being tools of Western cultural imperialism, these women are quietly working within the culture, rather than against it, citing progressive interpretations of Islam itself as justification for women’s empowerment, particularly in education and the workplace.

Coleman applauds the work of a global women’s movement, musawah (“equality” in Arabic), in researching how the laws of Islam elevated women’s rights in Arabia upon the faith’s 7th-century arrival there. Islamic laws prohibited the killing of girl babies, upheld the right of women to own property, the right to choose their own husbands and impose conditions on the marriage, and to divorce their husbands. They entitled women to an education, to dignity and respect, and the right to think for themselves.