On Dec. 4, 2010 Islam and Authors welcomes Dr. Kecia Ali, author of Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam, in conversation with Jason van Boom. Join us for the onstage conversation, audience Q&A, and book signing.
Tickets: $10 general, $5 students.
Date and Time: Saturday, December 4, at 6 pm
Location: Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California
1433 Madison Street (between 14th and 15th streets), Oakland, 94612
Email:islamandauthors@iccnc.org
Phone: (510) 832-7600
About the Book
Today, family law stands at the center of Muslim identity. Some of its
key elements, like divorce (talaq), have come under fire from reformers within and
critics outside the community even as other elements of the mutual
spousal rights it prescribes are celebrated. This book explores how
marriage law came to be formulated the way it was, with jurists drawing
ethical inspiration from Qur'an and Sunnah (Prophet's tradition) even as they were deeply
influenced by the hierarchical relations, including between masters and
slaves, that structured their societies. It considers the ways that
jurists reasoned and shows how they tried to respect human dignity and
create justice and fairness within marriage. Nonetheless, it concludes
that their still-influential answers are inadequate to today's world.
"A remarkable research accomplishment. Ali leads us through three strands
of early Islamic jurisprudence with careful attention to the nuances
and details of the arguments."
--Judith Tucker, author of
Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law
About the Author
Kecia Ali (Ph.D., Religion, Duke) is
Assistant Professor of Religion at
Boston
University. She
previously held research and teaching fellowships at
Harvard
Divinity
School
and
Brandeis
University. Her research interests
center on Islamic religious texts, especially jurisprudence, and women in both
historical and contemporary Muslim discourses. She is the author of Sexual
Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence,
which grew out of her work with the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project. She is also
the co-author (with Oliver Leaman) of Islam: The Key Concepts .
About the Hosts
S. Reshma Inamdar is Founding Director of SEMAH Inc. a domestic violence
prevention organization. She is also current Chair of the Alameda County
Council of the League of Women Voters, a founding member of the Northern
California Islamic Council, serves on the Fremont Chief of Police's Community
Advisory Committee, and is a member of various interfaith and professional
organizations.
Jason van Boom is a Bay Area writer and educator. He is Director of Development
and Marketing at ICCNC, is a correspondent with ILLUME Magazine, blogs for
Tikkun Daily and Huffington Post, and is currently teaching Pacific School of
Religion's summer course on Christian history. He is writing his PhD
dissertation for Graduate Theological Union's history area.
Islam and Authors Co-Sponsors:
This
Islam and Authors event is co-sponsored by
- Center for
Islamic Studies at Graduate Theological Union
- California Institute for
Integral Studies (CIIS)
- Islamic Scholarship Fund, Islamic Networks Group
- ILLUME Magazine, Council for American-Islamic Relations- San Francisco Bay Area
Chapter
- UC Berkeley Islamophobia Documentation and Research Project.
