By Nawab Khan, KUNA,
Brusels : A leading Muslim woman activist in the United States has underlined the important political role played by women in the Gulf countries particularly in Kuwait.
“We believe that the Gulf is very important because it is a prosperous region of the world and secondly there are some women activism coming out, specifically from countries like Kuwait,” Daisy Khan, Executive Director, American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) told KUNA in an interview in Brussels Tuesday. She noted that Kuwait is at the forefront of promoting a parliamentary system.
“We believe they are setting certain examples for women political engagement in the society,” said Khan who is currently on a visit to the Belgian capital to lecture about Muslims in the West. “I find this important and I can amplify that around the Muslim world to show that women in the Gulf can be active members in the society,” said Khan who hails from Kashmir but was educated in the US where she has been living for many years. ASMA, founded in 1997 in New York city, is an Islamic cultural and educational organization dedicated to fostering an American-Muslim identity and building bridges between American Muslims and the American public.
ASMA has launched a programmed called “Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow” aimed at nurturing a global Muslim leadership that employs Islamic and pluralistic values to enhance global peace and tolerance.
It is organising its next conference conference in Doha, Qatar in November in which 300 young Muslim community leaders from around the world will participate. “There will be heavy participation from the Gulf and men and women from Kuwait have been invited,” she told KUNA. The first Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow conference was held in Copenhagen, Denmark in July 2006, which brought together more than 100 participants from around the world. Earlier, Khan spoke on the topic “Women, youth and interfaith diversity: an American perspective,” at an event organised by a Brussels-based think-tank, European Policy Centre today.
As the wife of a mosque imam, Daisy is now working to dispel some misconceptions associated with Islam, that it is a violent religion, that Muslim women are suppressed.
She said that Muslims have to balance faith with modernity and stressed that there is no conflict in being thorough religions and being an American or European.
Daisy Khan who was honored as one of the 21 Leaders for the 21st Century last May called for the application of ethical values which are shared with all religions.
“Muslim communities in the West are open to critical thinking. What they are doing will have an impact on how Muslims adjust themselves in the modern context,” she said.