A B S T R A C T G In order to understand Muslim women's views on veiling in the West, one must take into account historical and socio-political factors such as a country's colonial/national history, the nature of its immigration regime, the demographic composition of immigrant groups, and how the nation operationalizes concepts such as secularism and citizenship. While academic literature and media reports on young Muslim women in Europe indicate that wearing the niqab or face veil is often viewed as an act of rebellion or a form of personal/political/religious identity, our in-depth interviews of young Muslim women in the United States reveal a different story. While half the participants in this study wore a headscarf or hijab, not one of them said they were interested in wearing the niqab. Instead, they believed the niqab was unnecessary in the American context. However, an overwhelming majority upheld the right of a woman to wear a niqab if she wanted to do so. Two American Muslim women narrated why they gave up wearing the niqab after wearing it for a short time. G
This article describes and explains the current official status of lesbianism in Iran. Our central question is why the installation of an Islamic government in Iran resulted in extreme regulations of sexuality. The authors argue that rather than a clear adoption of "Islamic teaching on lesbianism," the current regime of sexuality was "invented" through a series of interpretative moves, adoption of hidden assumptions, and creation of sexual categories. This article is organized into two sections. The first sets the scene of official sexuality in Iran through a summary of (1) the sections of the Iranian Penal code dealing with same-sex acts and (2) government support for sexual reassignment surgeries. The second section traces the "invention" of a dominant post-revolutionary Iranian view of Islam and sexuality through identifying a number of specific interpretive moves this view builds on.
The Sofreh: Comfort and Community among Women in Iran 1In the Iranian culture, sofreh is a generic term for a cloth on which food is served; the Iranian counterpart to "set the table" would translate "spread the sofreh." It has other literal and metaphorical meanings; for example, sofreh-e mehmani andakhtan refers to a party in which a meal is served to invited guests, and sofreh-e del (spread of the heart) means confiding one's innermost thoughts and feelings.Sofreh-e nazri refers to the sofreh used for a ceremonial votive meal (ghaza-e nazri) given to honor a saint or pray for a certain outcome. It is this meaning that I will focus on in this paper. In this sense, the word "sofreh" is often used as shorthand to refer not only to the cloth but all the preparations, practices, dishes, and rituals involved in this kind of religious banquet, and I will use this short form throughout the paper.Food rituals that play a significant role in ceremonies can reveal much about the society in which the rites are performed. Sofrehs play an important role in calendrical and votive ceremonies of the Iranian peoples, in Shi'i Muslim communities and in orthodox Zoroastrian, Jewish, and diaspora communities as well. This study will describe several sofrehs as celebrated by Shi'i in Iran and will explain how this ritual serves to strengthen social and religious ties between communities, especially among women.
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