Guest Speakers

I really enjoyed hearing from our guest speakers on Tuesday.  To get a firsthand account from women who practice Islam and can understand the way that Islam is applied to woman and Middle Eastern society is a treat, and I particularly enjoyed hearing from two different women of varying ages, from different regions and with different methods of practicing Islam.  I though that the presentation that was given yo us was very useful in helping us to understand the place that women have in Islam and that, much like our ideals in Christianity, women are to be treated with respect and it is acknowledged that woman are created from men and are to be considered equals with them.  I like how she made the distinction between what Islam says about female treatment and what is actually practiced.  There is a discrepancy there, but this is the kind of pattern that one would find in any society, under any religion.  We tend to associate violence against women with a problem concerning Islam, but she made it clear to us that this was not the case; rather it is caused by a problem with society not obeying the laws of Islam.  I found this presentation very helpful in understanding divisions between religious and societal standards in the Middle East.  

Hearing from two different speakers made the conversation much more interesting.  I wish we could have had some more time hearing from our second speaker because I enjoyed that she had a more modern take on Islamic life and applied some useful real life examples for us.  I was especially appreciative that she said she had many friends who were not religious at all, and yet she was accepted by them while practicing her faith.  This sort of made me wonder, if the people of Islam can accept all types of practices within their faith, why must Americans still generalize that all Islamic men look down on women and all Islamic women must veil themselves to be loved?  Again, it is misunderstanding between religion and culture.