Sharia and Women’s Rights
By Merima Tricic
On March 3 at 6 pm, the Middle Eastern Student Center hosted a panel to discuss and elaborate on what sharia (Islamic Law) exactly is, and what women’s rights are within sharia with the help of four panelists, Noha Al Shugairi (M.S. Licensed Marriage Therapist), Shaykh Jamal Diwaan (Scholar from Irvine) and Dr. Jeffrey Sacks (UCR professor of Arabic Literature).
While it is common belief that sharia is an oppressive and exploitive system, the panelists discussed the ways in which sharia actually serves to protect and empower women. Research revealed that, historically, the role of women in Islamic Law has protected them in case of divorce, death, business, and marriage, as well as protected their rights to vote and speak out. Faculty panelists also discussed current research and modern approaches to the role of women in Sharia and contrasted this with the negative media interpretations of sharia that have led to anti-sharia laws in the United States. I myself had the chance to speak at this event as a co-founder of the Middle Eastern Student Center and was overjoyed to hear and see new students come forward to ask questions that ordinarily would have been too difficult to ask in public; questions ranged from the headscarf to whether or not domestic violence was permitted within Islam. By the end of the Q&A session, students had gathered even after the event to speak with the scholars, many of whom told the speakers that such an event had opened their eyes to the amount of media misinterpretation and generalization that has been made even today.
I myself spoke to Noha Al Shugairi who commented, “Such events are so necessary given the amount of Islamophobia today. It’s important to open the doors to these conversations because society often deems it improper to ask but, [this] also constantly perpetuates these images in the media of what a ‘Muslim woman’ is.” The success of the event clearly highlighted that more events such as this will be present at UC Riverside next year. To get involved, be sure to contact the Middle Eastern Student Center through Merima Tricic at mtric001@ucr.edu.
