.... Hasan sees the rights of women as enshrined in the Quran and their violation as a modern phenomenon, born out of the hundreds of years of confusion that followed the colonisation of the Middle East by the West. It was this, she argues, that created inequality between the sexes in the Muslim world – not Muslim scholarship and certainly the teachings of Mohammed.
.... But Sharia law has an image problem in 2016 and debates about the origins of sexism and Islam are not likely to change that. Hasan may be angry but she says British Muslims are choosing to ride out the wave. Friends have had their hijabs ripped off in the street, while somebody threw a beer bottle at her just the other day. Britain's streets, she said, are getting ugly.
"I've been called a member of Isis. It is very hurtful and scary. [We] are the new hated people and Muslims are very aware of that. We all feel not only how much we are hated but how huge the job is. We are constantly trying to prove that we are not traitors," she said.
"For Muslims now it is about keeping under the radar, sitting tight and just hoping that this blows over without many of us being killed. I am not sensationalising this, people are terrified." [International Business Times] Read more
