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    Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East
    Unavailable
    Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East
    Unavailable
    Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East
    Ebook490 pages7 hours

    Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East

    By Isobel Coleman

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Now with a new Preface and Afterword by the author
     
    “Outstanding . . . [Isobel Coleman] takes us into remote villages and urban bureaucracies to find the brave men and women working to create change in the Middle East.”—Los Angeles Times
     
    In this timely and important book, Isobel Coleman shows how Muslim women and men across the Middle East are working within Islam to fight for women’s rights in a growing movement of Islamic feminism. Journeying through Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Coleman introduces the reader to influential Islamic feminist thinkers and successful grassroots activists working to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women. Their advocacy for women’s rights based on more progressive interpretations of Islam are critical to bridging the conflict between those championing reform and those seeking to oppress women in the name of religious tradition. Socially, culturally, economically, and politically, the future of the region depends on finding ways to accommodate human rights, and in particular women’s rights, with Islamic law. These reformers—and thousands of others—are the people leading the way forward.
     
    Featuring new material that addresses how the Arab uprisings and other recent events have affected the social and political landscape of the region, Paradise Beneath Her Feet offers a message of hope: Change is coming to the Middle East—and more often than not, it is being led by women.
     
    Praise for Paradise Beneath Her Feet
     
    “Clearly written, deeply moving, and wonderfully enlightening.”—Reza Aslan, author of No god but God 
     
    “[An] engrossing portrait of real Muslim women that reveals how Islamic feminists . . . are working with and within the culture, rather than against it . . . to forge ‘a legitimate Islamic alternative to the current repressive system.’ Coleman doesn’t diminish the enormity of the struggle, but she argues convincingly that it might yet rewrite Islam’s future.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
     
    “A nuanced view of Islam’s role in public life that is cautiously hopeful.”—The Economist
     
    “Eye-opening . . . Deeply religious, profoundly determined and modern in every way, these are twenty-first-century women bent on change. Hear them roar and see a future being born before our eyes.”—Booklist
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateApr 27, 2010
    ISBN9780679603696
    Unavailable
    Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East

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    Reviews for Paradise Beneath Her Feet

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      From the beginning, it's clear that this book is just a few years old. The foreword even includes that there have been progresses and setbacks since it's initial publication. Still, it's worth reading for anyone concerned about what's happening in the Middle East, worldwide women's rights, worldwide women's movements, or Islamic feminism.

      For me, the best part was that there is a significant amount of history relayed here that helps the reader understand where some of the issues come in. They are not necessarily the issues of women's rights, but why it's hard to talk about them. She covers how different regimes came to power and how each regime strings along a fight that is often "one step forward and two steps back". She also reminds us that the Christian reformation was no easier on anyone and relied on a similar change in circumstance to change the way it was viewed. It relied on people not only learning how to read, but going back through their religious texts on their own and fighting the laws and practices that were clearly not upheld by the text.

      Islamic feminists are doing just that now. They are increasing the amount of people who can read in their countries and they are getting the text of the Quran and reading it for themselves. They are fighting for the rights that Islam gives them which are far more than the rights they currently have. This book details the path that they have walked in five countries: Saudi Arabia, Morroco, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

      If you're on the fence, here are some more notes and highlights that I made while reading it. Perhaps they will pique your interest.

      Having been originally published in 2010, it missed some incredible events and the author goes back and recounts some of the changes that happened in 2013 when this edition was released. While there were many great moments to quote, this one made me tear up because I know what happens next:

      Indeed, as I write this, the shocking incident of the Taliban shooting a fourteen-year-old girl for speaking out on behalf of girls’ education in her native Pakistan has garnered world attention.
      Since this edition was published in 2013, I had wondered whether Malala was going to pop in at some point. It was heartbreaking and to find her here and written about this way. So much has happened since then. I hope that new editions or a sequel comes out as the Middle East continues to change.

      Feminism is alive and active in these countries, even when the word itself is not used, it is working for the improvement of the women within them. Before those of us outside of their countries can hope to actually help, Coleman asserts that we must first understand them. Imposing our ideas does not help. Understanding which part of the fight is most important to them and supporting their efforts is far more effective than going in and ripping off veils. Veils are not the problem. Veils don't even represent the problem, not if you ask them. The problem is so much bigger. To get a clear picture of it and what is being done to actually fight the oppression of women in these five countries, read this book.
    • 5/5
      Isobel Coleman is an expert on women's issues and on the Muslim world. She is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. First chapter in the book is "Why Women Matter" followed by chapters discussing the status of women in Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The big ray of hope is that there are women in those countries working to increase literacy and to encourage women to read the Quran for themselves and fight back against the cultural paternalism using the actual text of the Quran. A well-written, thought-provoking book.