In Egypt, Suad Salih, dean of the Women’s College at Al-Azhar, the Islamic academy in Cairo, argues that nothing in the religion bars women from being appointed qadis (judges). Three were appointed in January 2005 in Egypt, joining those already at work in Syria and Turkey. In New York, 175 Islamic feminists from 25 countries met in November 2006 to lay the groundwork for an international female fatwa council, arguing that there is nothing in the Qur’an that stipulates that only men can issue religious rulings.33

The feminist movement is not confined to women. Indonesian writer Husein Muhammad Nuruzzaman bases his arguments for gender equity on classical texts. “Many rules run counter to the moral message of Islam,” he told me in 2005. American academic Khaled Abou El Fadl, professor of law at UCLA and author of Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women, relies on authentic sources to make his points. So does Tariq Ramadan, Europe’s leading Muslim intellectual.

There is no consensus among Muslims on issues such as abortion or homosexuality or women priests, just as there isn’t in other religions. While women have led all-female congregations since the time of the Prophet and do so now in Iran and parts of China and South Africa, Muslim orthodoxy, like that of Catholic and some Protestant churches, resists women leading mixed congregations.

In fact, a full-fledged debate is underway on all aspects of women’s position in Islam. Grassroots organizations dedicated to women’s advocacy work are springing up in most Muslim nations as well as in Europe and North America. Many carry on spirited debates in magazines, weeklies and on the Web.

There is even an argument over the main argument — whether going backward is the best way forward. Fatima Mernissi says, echoing a broadly held sentiment, “the journey back in time is essential.”34

The hope of resurrecting the past has not stopped women from acting in the present. A new breed of Islamist women is emerging across Europe, as exemplified by the hijab-wearing Hanife Karakus of Limoges, the first woman to lead one of France’s twenty-five regional Islamic councils. Mosque-going women in North America, angry at being assigned the worst spaces for praying and for being relegated to kitchen duties, have made their views known. A poll by the Islamic Society of North America, the umbrella group of many mosques, found gender equity at the top of the respondents’ concerns. “People felt that women weren’t well treated and were excluded from decision-making,” said Ingrid Mattson, the first woman president of the society.35 The complaint is not confined to women. Khaled El Fadl says there is little or nothing in Islamic jurisprudence decreeing that women must pray in a separate room. After all, at the two holy mosques of Mecca and Medina, women pray in the same area as men, perform all the same rites as men, shoulder to shoulder with men. In the early period of Islam, women joined men at the mosque not only to pray but to debate the issues of the day.