The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the
Crusades)spi rit ual , rel igio us iss ues , but is the bas is for equa lit y in all temp ora l
aspectsof humanendeavor,'
An ot he rMu sl im wo me n' s ad vo ca te ,th e Eg yp ti an Dr. Na wa l el-
Saadawi, who has run afoul of the Egyptian authorities because Muslim
divin es consi der her opinio ns less than Islami c, goes still furth er: "Our
Islamic religion has given women more rights than any other religion has,
and has guaranteed herhonorand pride."`
In the same vein, theChristian Science Monitorin December2004 fea-
tured several Latin American female converts toIslam.'One ofthem, Jas-
mine Pinet, explained thatshe"has foundgreater respect as a woman by
con vert ingto Isl am. " Pin et pra ise d Mus lim men for the ir res pec t for
women: "They're not gonna say, "Heymami,how areyou?'Usually they
say, "Hello, sister.'And they don't look at you like a sex object." TheMon-
itorreportsthat there areforty thousand Latin American Muslims in the
United States today, and, that"manyof the Latina converts say that their
belief thatwomen are treated better in Islam was a significant factor in
converting."
For rea der s who migh t fin d thi s sur pri sin g—give n the bur qa, pol y-
gamy, the proh ibit ion of femal e driv ers in Saudi Arabi a, and other ele-
me nt s of th e Is la mic re co rd on wo me nth at ar e we ll kn ow n in th e
West—theMoni torquot es Leila Ahmed , prof essor of women 's stud ies
and religionatHarvard "Itastoundsme, the extent to which people think
Afghan istan and the Taliba n repres ent women and Islam," Ahmed says
that "we' re in the earl y stag es of a major rethi nking ofIsla m thatwill
open Islamforwomen, 'Muslim scholars are rereading the core texts of
Islam—fromthe Koran to legal texts—ineverypossible way,"
But did the Taliba n really origin ate the featur es of Islam that discri m-
inat e agai nst wome n? Will a "rer eadi ng" of the Qur'a n and othe r core
textsofIslamreallyhelp "open Islamfor women"? These are some of the
texts that willhave to be "reread":