Women in Islam – Shirin Ebadi

By Katie Higgs – March 16, 2018

 

In honor of March being Women’s History Month, DISC would like to focus out attention on some amazing and inspiring Muslim women. The first women we want to highlight is Shirin Ebadi. In 2003, Dr. Shirin Ebadi became the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. She received the award for her work as a Human Rights lawyer in Iran, specifically fighting for women, children, and refugees. Following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, women saw many of their rights diminished, though many women had been participants in the revolution. Ebadi has sought to reconcile Islamic Law and Women’s rights through her work. After the revolution Ebadi lost her position as a judge, and was made a clerical worker in the very court that she once presided over.

Dr. Ebadi tells her story in beautiful detail in her first memoir, Iran Awakening. After the revolution, Iran began practicing their interpretation of Sharia, however there were several practices that Ebadi believed to be discriminatory against women. These included the divorce laws and retribution laws. In 1992, she was given a license to practice law by the Iranian Bar Association. Ebadi uses several cases she fought to demonstrate how these laws were unjust, something that Islam does not condone. The legal system in Iran is based in the Ja’fari tradition of legal thought  which allows for ijtihad, (the concept of exerting effort to arrive at an unprecedented interpretation of religious matters). She relied on ijtihad to do away with discriminatory practices that had come from tradition.

Over the course of her life she has been able to shed light on many injustices of the Iranian legal system. In her memoir she says “…an interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of faith. It is not religion that binds women, but the selective dictates of those who wish them cloistered. That belief, along with the conviction that change in Iran must come peacefully and from within, has underpinned my work.”

Unfortunately she has been exiled from Iran since 2009. However, she has not given up the fight for women’s rights from abroad. In 2016, DISC hosted a lecture she gave at the University of Michigan. In a Live Mint interview Dr. Ebadi stated that she would return to Iran when she could return to her work as a human rights lawyer. She states, “In exile, I try to be the voice of all those Iranians who are faceless, harassed and censored”.  She details her final years in Iran in her newest memoir, Until We Are Free. In 2016, Ebadi was the DISC Distinguished Lecturer. She spoke about Gender and Sexuality in the Islamic Culture – you can watch the entire lecture below.

 

 

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