Events > Archive > Women and Religion Speaker Series

In cooperation with The Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWaG) and The Center for the Study of Law and Culture at Columbia Law School, CDTR invited women’s activists from the Muslim world to present their approaches to women’s rights advocacy from within an Islamic framework.

“Ziba Mir-Hosseini: “Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform”

November 29 2007

Ziba Mir-Hosseini is Research Associate at the London Middle East Institute and the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Law, both at SOAS, University of London, and currently Hauser Global Law Visiting Professor at NYU Law School. An anthropologist by training, she has done extensive research in Iran and Morocco. Her publications include the books Marriage on Trial: A Comparative Study of Family Law in Iran and Morocco, Islam and Gender: the Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran, and (with Richard Tapper) Islam and

Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform. She has also co-directed two award-winning featurelength documentaries filmed in Iran: Divorce Iranian Style and Runaway.

Lily Munir: “The Introduction of Sharia-nuanced By-Laws and the Creation of Patriarchy in Indonesia”
November 20, 2007

Lily Munir founded the Center for Pesantren and Democracy Studies (CePDeS) in Indonesia, was an International Commissioners of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) of Afghanistan, a research fellow on Islam and Human Rights Programme of the School of Law of Emory University in Atlanta, GA, under the leadership of Prof. Abdullahi A. An-Na’im, and a visiting lecturer on the subject of Women’s/Human Rights under Shariah at the University of South Carolina’s School of Law.

Zainah Anwar: “What Islam, Whose Islam? Challenges of Women's Rights Advocacy in Malaysia”
November 15, 2006

Zainah Anwar, a women’s rights activist and well-published freelance writer, is the Executive Director of Sisters in Islam (SIS), a group of professionals committed to promoting the rights of Muslim women. An advocate for women’s rights under Islam and the possibilities for alternative interpretations of the Qur’an, she was formerly a member of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, a Chief Programme Officer for the Political Division at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, and a Senior Analyst at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies. She was also a political and diplomatic writer for the “The New Straits Times” in Kuala Lumpur. Her book Islamic Revivalism in Malaysia: Dakwah Among the Students is a standard reference in the study of Islam in Malaysia. Ms. Anwar was educated at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Boston University, and the MARA Institute of Technology in the fields of international relations and journalism.