Sherin Khankan is misunderstood. Ever since launching Denmark’s first and only woman-led mosque in 2016, she’s been regularly accused of being a radical Muslim. But that’s something the self-described “Islamic feminist” says could not be further from the truth.
“I believed it was time to change the patriarchal structure of Islam for a new generation of Muslims by rereading the Koran with a focus on women’s rights, on gender equality, and by promoting female Muslim leadership in the mosque,” the country’s first female imam, or mosque prayer leader, tells Yahoo Lifestyle, about her Mariam Mosque in Copenhagen.
Khankan, 43, is, in fact, the poster-child example of a modern Muslim woman who fits neatly into Western society — where many not only view Islam as oppressive, male-dominated, and threatening to long-standing democratic institutions, but may also have a negative view of Muslim women as being restricted in their own free will, from pursuing education to choosing what they can wear. [Yahoo] Read more
