This House believes that Muslim women should be free to marry anyone they choose
Monday May 25 2009
MOTION PASSED
by 62% to 38%
Speakers
Asra Nomani
Speaking for the motion
Asra Nomani is a writer and activist and the author of Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam.
Born in Bombay, India, she moved to the United States when she was four. After finishing university, she worked as a journalist, spending 15 years with the Wall Street Journal. In 2000, she wrote Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love, in which she examined her identity as a Muslim, an Indian and an American.
After September 11, 2001, she became a correspondent for Salon magazine, reporting from Pakistan. While there, her friend Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was kidnapped and murdered.
Since 2007, she has been an adjunct professor of journalism at Georgetown, leading a student-faculty investigation into his death. A documentary is due to be released shortly chronicling Ms. Nomani's decision in 2003 to challenge the rules at her mosque that required women to enter through the back door and pray in a separate area.
Yasir Qadhi
Speaking against the motion
Yasir Qadhi is a Muslim American cleric who lectures throughout the English speaking world. He has written several books on Islam and is a teaching fellow at Yale University, where he is completing his PhD in Islamic studies.
Yasir Qadhi was born in Houston, Texas, to Pakistani parents and went to high school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
After graduating from university with a degree in chemical engineering, he decided to pursue an education in Islamic studies and left for the Islamic University of Madinah. There, he completed his second Bachelor's Degree, specializing in Hadith studies, followed by an M.A. in Theology.
In 2007 he started blogging at MuslimMatters.org. He is currently Dean of Academic Affairs at AlMaghrib Institute and appears regularly on a number of Islamic satellite channels.
Muhammad Habash
Speaking for the motion
Dr. Muhammad Habash is a Muslim cleric and a member of the Syrian Parliament. He leads Friday prayers at the Al-Zahraa Mosque in Damascus and is the Director of the Islamic Studies Centre in the Syrian capital.
He has been Professor of the Sciences of the Holy Quran at the Islamic College since 1998 and Professor of "Tafsir" at the College of Usul Ed-din since 1992. He has also been Director of the Institutes of the Holy Quran in Syria since 1989.
Dr. Habash has written numerous books on Islam including The Humane Rights in Islam, Muslims and the Science of Civilisation, a biography on the Prophet Muhammad and The Islamic Culture. Hundreds of his articles and research papers have been published in the Arab and international press.
He holds an M.A. in Islamic Studies from the University of Higher Studies in Karachi and a PhD in the Sciences of the Quran from the University of the Holy Quran in Khartoum.
Thuraya Al Arrayed
Speaking against the motion
Dr. Thuraya Al Arrayed is a Saudi writer, columnist, poet and a member of the advisory board of the Arab Thought Foundation.
She writes several regular columns in Arab newspapers and has three published volumes of poetry. Her articles tackle current and controversial issues and she is a frequent broadcaster on both Arab and international channels.
Dr. Al Arrayed is a researcher in the literary, educational and development fields and has participated in numerous conferences, including the World Economic Forum at Davos.
She received her PhD in Educational Administration and Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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