- Playing
- Reclaiming Islam: A Woman's Perspective
- From
- Laura Jackson
In her memoir "A Border Passage," Leila Ahmed weaves the lived experience of being both Muslim and female into the academic debate over Islam. She declares, "What we are living through now seems to be not merely the erasure of the living oral, ethical, and humane traditions of Islam but the literal destruction and annihilation of the Muslims who are the bearers of those traditions." And she asserts her hope that the gentle, pacifist, inclusive Islam that she received from her mother and from other women in the "harem" gatherings that graced her childhood in Cairo, Egypt, will prevail. Listeners will hear conversations with Professor Ahmed and with two of her women Muslim students, dramatic readings from her memoir "A Border Passage," Islamic music, chanting from the Quran and contextualizing narration.
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Piece Description
In her memoir "A Border Passage," Leila Ahmed weaves the lived experience of being both Muslim and female into the academic debate over Islam. She declares, "What we are living through now seems to be not merely the erasure of the living oral, ethical, and humane traditions of Islam but the literal destruction and annihilation of the Muslims who are the bearers of those traditions." And she asserts her hope that the gentle, pacifist, inclusive Islam that she received from her mother and from other women in the "harem" gatherings that graced her childhood in Cairo, Egypt, will prevail. Listeners will hear conversations with Professor Ahmed and with two of her women Muslim students, dramatic readings from her memoir "A Border Passage," Islamic music, chanting from the Quran and contextualizing narration.
Transcript
INTRODUCING THE PLAYERS/IDEAS
Reading: It was as if there were to life itself a quality of music in that time, the era of my childhood, and in that place, the remote edge of Cairo. On hot nights the street lamp cast the shadows of the slender twirling eucalyptus leaves onto my bedroom wall, my own secret cinema. I would fall asleep watching those dancing shadows, imagining to myself that I saw a house in them and people going about their lives.
Almost everything then seemed to have its own beat, its own lilt. There was the music of the street beyond the garden hedge in the day, not noisy but alive. People walking, greeting one another, the clip clop of a donkey, sometimes of a horse. Street vendors’ calls—“tama-a-tim” for tomatoes, “robbabe-e-eccia-a” for old clothes and furniture. There was the sound sometimes in the earliest morning, of the reed piper walking past our hous...
Read the full transcript
Timing and Cues
In: chanting
Out: credits, plus 30 seconds of music
Musical Works
Music was from “The Music of Islam Sampler,” produced by Celestial Harmonies.
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Dmae Roberts
Posted on July 01, 2004 at 08:45 AM | Permalink
Review of Reclaiming Islam: A Woman's Perspective
This is a good series and the producers are to be commended for taking on Arabic content from a woman's perspective not just with with this piece but with a prior piece "Lolita Unveiled" also on PRX. The production values are high and I like this narrator though at times I think the overall piece could use less compression. But that's nitpicking. I found this an engaging and thoughtful piece and partnering it with Lolita and perhaps some of their other pieces would make a great half-hour or one-hour special for any station concerned with Middle Eastern topics. I hope to hear more from Producers Laura Jackson and Betsy Morgan.