[farah]

Originally Posted by Purple_alien

I just searched her. She is an Assistant professor of religion at the University of Florida. She spent two years living and conducting dissertation research in the Middle East countries of Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria.
Oh, and her middle name is Zohara, if that makes you feel better
Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons Biography - NHAP

Originally Posted by MoonStar

I haven't heard of her before, just googled her right now, she seems really interesting though

thanks for the input guys! so here's my concern: i know she's muslim, but there's plenty of muslim women (yes, even speakers) who do NOT represent me (and a lot of women i know) as a muslim woman.

i spent a bit of time googling her yesterday, looking specifically for her stance on women in islam. i can't find lectures or essays or anything, but her biography listed her as studying sufism under a renowned sufi "saint" (i'm guessing that's university of florida's way of saying "scholar"). i can deal with that.

then i found her in a book -- "progressive muslims" by omid safi -- alongside amina wadud. a review of the book from a blog reads:

"Simmons writes from a radical feminist Sufi perspective and also relates her views to her experiences as part of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s. One thing that may turn readers off is how Simmons apparently compares the experience of Muslim women everywhere to the Jim Crow South - even Muslim women in America. By failing to acknowledge the great variety and diversity of Muslim women's experience, she risks trivializing some very serious problems, such as in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and certain other countries."

hm. examining this further in google, i get:

Amira el-Azhary Sonbol and Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons emphasized that while the Qur’an came from God, it has traditionally been interpreted by men who have ignored the female experience. All interpretation, they asserted, is grounded in human experience, and patriarchal interpretations have resulted in discrimination against and the subjugation of women. While Simmons argued for new interpretations of the Qur’an derived from the international ideals of human rights, Sonbal maintained that the Qur’an itself supplies the basis for equal treatment of women.

...i'm not sure i can jive with that. i'm not dumb, i know what i'm looking at here are snippets from random google documents, but the more i look into it, the more hesitant i am. i'm basically looking for anyone who knows of this women and can prove me wrong. our exec board meeting on sunday might be to decide whether or not we want to bring her

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and if anyone DOESN'T know this chick, is there anyone else they'd recommend to bring to speak on women in islam?