Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam: Kecia Ali at Islam and Authors

On Dec. 4, 2010 Islam and Authors welcomes Dr. Kecia Ali, author of Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam, in conversation with Jason van Boom. Join us for the onstage conversation, audience Q&A, and book signing.

Tickets: $10 general, $5 students.

About the Book

Today, family law stands at the center of Muslim identity. Some of its key elements, like divorce (talaq), have come under fire from reformers within and critics outside the community even as other elements of the mutual spousal rights it prescribes are celebrated. This book explores how marriage law came to be formulated the way it was, with jurists drawing ethical inspiration from Qur'an and Sunnah (Prophet's tradition) even as they were deeply influenced by the hierarchical relations, including between masters and slaves, that structured their societies. It considers the ways that jurists reasoned and shows how they tried to respect human dignity and create justice and fairness within marriage. Nonetheless, it concludes that their still-influential answers are inadequate to today's world.

"A remarkable research accomplishment. Ali leads us through three strands of early Islamic jurisprudence with careful attention to the nuances and details of the arguments."
--Judith Tucker, author of Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law

About the Author

Kecia Ali (Ph.D., Religion, Duke) is Assistant Professor of Religion at Boston University. She previously held research and teaching fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and Brandeis University. Her research interests center on Islamic religious texts, especially jurisprudence, and women in both historical and contemporary Muslim discourses. She is the author of Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence, which grew out of her work with the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project. She is also the co-author (with Oliver Leaman) of Islam: The Key Concepts .


About the Hosts

S. Reshma Inamdar is Founding Director of SEMAH Inc. a domestic violence prevention organization. She is also current Chair of the Alameda County Council of the League of Women Voters, a founding member of the Northern California Islamic Council, serves on the Fremont Chief of Police's Community Advisory Committee, and is a member of various interfaith and professional organizations.

Jason van Boom is a Bay Area writer and educator. He is Director of Development and Marketing at ICCNC, is a correspondent with ILLUME Magazine, blogs for Tikkun Daily and Huffington Post, and is currently teaching Pacific School of Religion's summer course on Christian history. He is writing his PhD dissertation for Graduate Theological Union's history area.

Islam and Authors Co-Sponsors:

This Islam and Authors event is co-sponsored by Center for Islamic Studies at Graduate Theological Union, California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS), Islamic Scholarship Fund, Islamic Networks Group, ILLUME Magazine, Council for American-Islamic Relations- San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, and the UC Berkeley Islamophobia Documentation and Research Project.