As far as the reinterpretation–or the idea of going back to the “original” text–is concerned, I agree it is a long battle. Part of the problem, IMHO, is that the Qur’an as the literal Word of God (in Arabic) is harder to contend with than the inspired Word of God that the Bible is believed to be (though there are fundamentalist Christians who seem to have pretty inflexible views of biblical hermeneutics as well). It is *not* impossible, however. One of the most recent classes I took was “The Qur’an and Its Interpreters,” and at least among the academic Muslim scholars, there is much work on interpretive strategies to nuance many of the meanings. Actually, I recommend Farid Esack’s book The Qur’an: A User’s Guide for some really interesting (insightful and incite-ful) views on Qur’anic hermeneutics.

And I think awareness is growing about the plight of women in radical Islamist regimes through the rise of transnational feminisms. But it is also not a reductionist, overly simplistic view that Muslim Man=Evil. (Which is *not* what I think you’re doing, btw.) It is the recognition that oppression and human rights violation transcends religious belief, culture, or even gender–and it attempts to analyze the way these intertwine to perpetuate violence and a destruction or severe infringement on freedom. (I also don’t think *freedom* will look the same everywhere, but that is the continual struggle between “universal human rights” and what are “cultural rights” or “political autonomy”–and defining what constitutes each. And a conversation for another time….)

In other words, there is no moral equivalence. A study of the history of the conflict makes that pretty clear. Note that I don’t blame only Palestinian groups for the current situation. It is at least as much the fault of surrounding Islamic nations, for repeatedly invading Israel, killing its people in constant “small” attacks via terrorism, and even now continuing to threaten its very existence, all the while refusing to do what they could easily have done to ease the situation of Palestinians, if they had not wanted to keep it as a political tool with which to bash Israel.

So yes, by all means find fault with both sides…. but it’s a pretty tough hill to climb to find *equivalence*, morally speaking, between the two sides.

BTW, I honor Muslims who are trying to reform their religion from the inside… I link to some on this site, in fact, and have from the beginning of it. (See the link to American Islamic Forum for Democracy on my blogroll.) And I often link to and quote from http://www.womenagainstshariah.com/ But they have a tough row to hoe, because of what’s in the Koran and Hadith. Essentially, Christians had a Reformation by going back to their founding texts, not by ignoring large swaths of them. Islam will have to find a way to interpret out of existence much of its founding texts in order to reform itself, or a culturally permissible way to simply ignore them. And the problem will always remain that anyone who takes those texts seriously will be able to challenge the piety of those who don’t.

I continue to doubt that the plight of women in Islam gets anything like the attention on college campuses that is received by many other issues. Given that Muslims hurt Muslim women more than Israelis do, wouldn’t you think that would get more play? But Israel bashing is higher education’s favorite sport, other than bashing anyone on the Right, or white males, or whatever. I suspect that even at Claremont, if you take the last five years and count the number of seminars and special sessions on each, you’ll see the tale of the tape telling the story. And, of course, Claremont is a positive hotbed of conservatism compared to most state schools.