By Our editor-in-chief Amani Al-Khatahtbeh joined HuffPost Live on Monday to discuss how millennial Muslim women are reshaping Islam.
The discussion was prompted and joined by the anonymous author of Gawker’s published essay called “Practicing Islam in Short Shorts,” in which a Muslim woman explores her contemporary interpretation of the faith. The conversation not only talked about women’s practice of Islam, but also their representation in the media and the marginalization of their lived experiences. The guests also got a chance to respond to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s stance on Islam.
Amani told HuffPost Live:
We just keep getting spoken over by the public and people trying to tell us what our religion means for us and that we’re oppressed by our religion as if we can’t think for ourselves or we’re not aware what we’re practicing. And I think that’s where the problem lies.
WTF is with the hair!!!!!
Regarding interpretation of the Qur’an. The great logician, John Venn, warned of neglecting the subjective aspect of rationality:
“Logic then as conceived here [i.e., as reason,] is neither a purely objective nor a purely subjective science. It involves both elements, consisting essentially in the relation of one to the other, and serious error results from the neglect of either aspect, and even from insufficient recognition of it.”
––The Principles of Empirical, or Inductive, Logic. pg. 23
He expounds on that in Chapter V, The Subjective Foundations of Induction, showing that no object (physical or ideal) presents itself ‘as it is’, i.e., bypassing one’s subjective processes:
https://archive.org/stream/principlesofempi029557mbp#page/n135/mode/2up
Of course this means that anyone’s and everyone’s interpretation of the Qur’an is necessarily imbued with some subjectivity.
Venn wrote a whole book on this subject entitled On Some of the Characteristics of Belief, Scientific and Religious. I highly recommend it, (but after reading Ch. V, part I, (six pages) from the link above.)
https://archive.org/details/onsomeofcharacte00venn
Peace.