Reza Aslan Quotes

Religion does not require women to veil their hands, feet and faces or enjoin any special type of veil. Tribal custom must not impose itself on the free will of the individual

You—the outside world—will be told that it is our “culture” and “religion” to do X, Y, and Z to women. Understand that whoever deemed it as such was never a woman.

In South Asia, there is a lack of understanding of the term 'empowerment' because majority of the people think that the definition of women empowerment is to wear fewer clothes, to renounce her culture and traditions, and that it's synonymous with immorality.

I discovered that wearing the veil is not suitable for a woman who wants to work in activism and the public domain. People need to see you, to associate and relate to you. It is not stated in my religion to wear the veil; it is a traditional practice, so I took it off.

Culturally, it is commonplace for African women to work.

The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying. This is America, not Saudi Arabia.

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints.

Saudi clerics are relying on their own male-oriented interpretation of what a woman should wear. These fatwas are certainly not accepted by all Muslims. I wonder why the more pressing issues of poverty and illiteracy of Muslim women are not given the same amount of coverage as the veil.

a nation would not profit under a woman as its leader

It is my opinion that whatever is the custom of a nation, and is practiced by the first characters of that nation towards their chief, cannot degrade strangers who perform the same.

In the religion classes, students learn that the Saudi interpretation of Islam supersedes any worldly concept of human rights. Women have the most to lose, yet their ideas are so ingrained that I defy you to find a report of a Saudi mother complaining about what our children are being taught.

There is no way in Israel that a street will be closed to women, there is no such thing. There never was and never will be.

Saudi Arabia isn't just a conservative country with different values we shouldn't judge. It is a modern Gilead.

I think in the United States we have a different standard for what equality means for women that isn't really that comparable to that in the Middle East.

All this talk of equality remains merely on paper. In real life, women are still bound by several psychological shackles and emotional boundaries imposed on them by their families and others. If a girl comes home late, she is asked 100 questions, whereas boys are not answerable for anything. And this prevails across segments.

In India, I don't think any woman here is dictated what to wear, how to wear, whom to meet, when to meet... I am of the opinion, I don't think anybody is dictated here; you are not told.

What we are saying is we have to be smart about the ideology that is putting this idea into the world that a woman must be defined by her idea of modesty, that she is the vessel for honor in a community. And I believe that we have to be very pragmatic, too, about the consequence of this. Women in Iran and Saudi Arabia are jailed, punished and harassed if they don't cover themselves legally, according to the standard of those countries. So the consequences for many women is oftentimes very dark.

I didn't know feminism was actually a thing until I left home and found out the country didn't run the way my mom's house did.

In many developing countries, girls don't go to school. They stay home. They are at the water wells, bringing water back and forth to the village. Or they are doing chores, preparing meals, farming. Some cultures think girls and women shouldn't be educated, and those are very often the places where the treatment of women and girls is the worst.

We have to look at it country by country. In places like the developing world where, as you say, in Mumbai, it's about five hours' gap between what a woman does and a man does. You have to start by recognizing the problem and talking about it, trying to change those roles.

A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments.

Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice; for indeed it seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country we live in

Traditions are neither good nor bad, they simply are... Rationality is not an arbiter of traditions, it is itself a tradition or an aspect of a tradition.

In some of the countries, women are not allowed to even leave the house. And that's something that needs to change. So, raising awareness among both sexes is key to that.

There is nothing so extreme that is not allowed by the custom of some nation or other.