A Quiet Revolution Read Free

decided to involve herself as a volunteer in the activities of her own children, as well as other children. In this way she “became aware of the pressures her children faced in the North American school system.” 56
    For Beshir, in true Islamist tradition, Islam above all entailed ac- tivism. “I believe it’s everyone’s job to promote Islam and do da‘wa (spreading the news about Islam),” she wrote, “in whatever form they are capable of.” Beshir would involve herself in Islamic education, pio- neering the field in North America: founding two Islamic schools and writing several books with her husband on parenting Muslim children in the West. 58 As the biographical information offered on the cover of sev-
    eral of her books notes, in 2000 , Beshir received the Ottawa-Carlton Dis-
    trict School Board award for her contributions as “best educator.”

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    American Muslim Women’s Activism in the Twenty-First Century

    T

    ayyibah Taylor, founder of Azizah magazine, was born in Trinidad and raised in Canada. Taught by her parents always to “behave perfectly, speak eloquently, and dress impressively, so that, as a person of color, others would deem me accept-
    able,” Taylor recalled her first encounter with Ebony magazine as mark- ing a particularly important moment. For the first time, she wrote, she saw “media images of people of color that were positive.” The experi- ence began for her the process of undercutting an “internalized sense of inferiority” that had begun to seep into her with her move to Canada at the age of seven. 1
    On a visit to Barbados during her college years in Toronto, Taylor embraced Islam as her “spiritual path.” Subsequently she lived for a time in Saudi Arabia, then in Seattle, where she helped to found an Islamic school at which she also taught. Thereafter she set about pursuing her dream of launching Azizah, a magazine “for the woman who doesn’t apologize for being a Muslim and doesn’t apologize for being a woman.” The magazine deliberately avoids focusing on any particular ethnic group, and does not affiliate itself with any particular a school of thought or organization. “Instead,” Taylor wrote, “it reflects all Muslim women in their diversity, thus speaking to the polycentric nature of Islam.” The name Azizah, Taylor further explains, a name found “in any Muslim
    country,” means “dear, strong, noble. So, we defined the Azizah woman as the one who is dear to herself and others, with noble strength and dig- nity, boldly reclaiming our attribute of strength.”
    Azizah, which features the fabrics, colors, and dress styles of the Muslim world in its transcontinental diversity, is known for the elegance of the fashions that fill its pages, including its stylish hijabs—a garment that Taylor herself elegantly sports. The magazine, which Taylor de- scribes as a “catalyst for empowerment,” is also known for its coverage of issues, activities, and books of importance to Muslim American
    women. In 2007 , for example, Azizah published a discussion of a newly
    published translation of the Quran, along with an interview with the translator, Laleh Bakhtiar. 2
    Bakhtiar’s translation, The Sublime Quran, the first English trans- lation by a Muslim American woman, created a stir because of Bakhtiar’s translation of one particular verse in the Quran, a verse of critical im- portance with regard to the treatment of women—verse 4 : 34 .
    Bakhtiar herself anticipated controversy over her unconventional rendering of this verse. In her Preface and Introduction to the translation she describes her research methods and sources, explaining how she es- tablished the exact meanings of words and where her translation differed from other English translations. Bakhtiar observes that one underlying difference between her own and other translations is that in prior trans- lations “little attention had been given to the woman’s point of view.”