Muslim Women\u27s Rights in the Global Village: Challenges and Opportunities

In this age of information technology that shrank our world into a global village, it is fair to ask how this recent development has impacted Muslim women\u27s rights across the world. Having just traveled through nine Muslim countries, ranging from Pakistan and Bangladesh to the Gulf States, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, I would answer that it is leading, slowly but surely, to reassessment and change.\u27 Attempts to accelerate the pace of this change, however, without full understanding of its complex topology, and the deep-rooted commitment by most Muslim women to spiritual and cultural authenticity, could halt or even reverse this process at great cost to women particularly and Muslim societies as a whole. Hence the challenges and opportunities