Bride of the Prophet
This is an outstanding interview from Salon.com with Geraldine Brooks, the author of "Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women". Here, she uses the recent Miss World riots in Nigeria to illustrate how misogynists and demagogues have completely usurped the modern-day interpretation of Islam, and perverted it from the very sensual and romantic original teachings of the prophet Mohammed. Of particular interest to me is her depiction of the growing tend of female religious scholars in Iran, who are in fact rolling back many of the draconian restrictions on women by showing their contradictions with the actual text of the Quran. She also lays alot of the blame for the current vulgarity of Islam in the Middle East squarely on the doorstep of the Saudi royal family. Personally, I will be very interested to see how Iran & Saudi Arabia interact with each other politically and culturally as time passes.
