Muslim community organizations in the United
States are responding to women’s call for inclusion.
The Islamic Society of North America had its first
female vice president in 2001. The American
Muslim Alliance elected a woman to serve on its
board in 2004. Nearly half the staff and a board
member of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations are women. Among young Muslims, the
inclusion of women is being institutionalized. For
example, some Muslim Student Association (MSA)
chapters, such as MSA-Northwestern University in
Chicago, now have by-laws requiring co-presi-
dency by males and females. On 25 June 2004,
MSA National elected its first female president. As
women gain access to higher education and job
related skills, they enhance their contribution to
community and society and increase their chances
to improve their status and assume leading roles.Bibliography
M. Afkhami, Faith and freedom. Women’s human rights
in the Muslim world, Syracuse, N.Y. 1995.
C. Anway, Daughters of another path. Experiences of
American women choosing Islam, Lee’s Summit, Mo.
1996.
Y. Y. Haddad and J. L. Esposito (eds.), Islam, gender, and
social change, New York 1998.
J. I. Smith (ed. and intro.), Women in contemporary
Muslim societies, Lewisburg, Pa. 1980.
A. Wadud, Qur±an and woman. Rereading the sacred text
from a woman’s perspective, New York 1999.
G. Webb (ed.), Windows of faith. Muslim women scholar-
activists in North America, Syracuse, N.Y. 2000.Mohamed NimerWestern EuropeFundamental rights are protected legally at dif-
ferent levels in Western Europe. Do Muslim women
living in the member states of the European Union
fully experience these rights? Do they benefit from
more freedom of expression and religious expres-
sion than in Muslim countries?
Freedom of expression and freedom of religious
expression are part of the fundamental rights that
are guaranteed and protected by law at the national
and European Union level. These fundamental
rights have individual and collective dimensions
that may in some case interfere with and even con-
tradict each other. Moreover, in Western European
countries, the complex history of the relationship
between state and religion is central to understand-
ing the specific political culture of every national
context. Western Europe may in fact appear from
the outside as a relatively uniform religious land-
scape (Christian). The difficulty of the task of ana-186 freedom of expression
lyzing freedom of expression and freedom of reli-
gious expression of Muslim women living in
Europe lies in the extreme diversity of the national
settings when attempting to interpret the meaning
of these fundamental rights and putting them into
practice. This may be the main reason for the prob-
lem Western European societies have in recognizing
and guaranteeing these fundamental rights to Mus-
lim populations.
In the European Union, a set of legal provisions
has been implemented aimed at protecting the fun-
damental rights of individuals. Recently, the Euro-
pean directive on the creation of a general system
for equal treatment in employment and work
(2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000) makes reli-
gion an individual criterion for discrimination,
which for the first time appears explicitly in a
juridical text. However, there is no unitary “reli-
gious” European public policy. Religion remains
potentially a highly controversial issue as demon-
strated in the discussion of the text of the Preamble
to the future European Constitution and the quota-
tion of an explicit reference to a set of “common
religious values.” In this picture, Muslims in many
respects appear as latecomers and even as trouble-
makers. For instance, now that the economic,
juridical, and political standards for admission into
the European Union are closer than ever, the per-
spective of the accession of Turkey, a secular repub-
lic but still a Muslim society, is more openly
questioned in terms of religious identity.
The situation of Muslim women in this context is
the same as for other women, at least from a purely
juridical perspective. Indeed, if Muslim women do
have European citizenship through access to that
citizenship in their country of residence, they fall
within the scope of European jurisdiction as far as
personal status is concerned. This, however, is not
the case for those who are still citizens of Muslim
countries and still subject to the rule of law of these
countries. This is of peculiar importance for mar-
riage and divorce, and also for decisions concerning
children in such cases. Freedom of expression and
fundamental rights remain under foreign legal
influence and may contradict the fundamental prin-
ciples of the European Union. A particularly vivid
illustration is the reality of a child kidnapped
(mainly) by his or her father after a divorce in a
Western European country and brought back to his
country of origin.
If we try to map the situation of Muslim women
in Western European societies, a distinction has to
be made between women who have access to edu-
cation and professional skills, allowing them em-
ployment and financial autonomy, and those who