Asma Lamrabet is considered one of the most important authors whose work focuses on the issues of women and women’s rights in Islam. She has consistently defended a liberal and reformist reading of religious texts about women, challenging Salafist interpretations that have denied the women their rights.
Asma Lamrabet was born in Rabat in 1961. Her father was a progressive activist who was sentenced to death during the reign of the late HM King Hassan II. He went into exile to escape the oppression of the authorities.
Asma Lamrabet trained as a medical doctor and worked as a volunteer doctor in Spain, Chile and Mexico for eight years (from 1995 to 2003) while accompanying her husband, a diplomat. Afterwards, she became interested in women’s issues in Islam.
In 2011, she was appointed director of the Center for Women’s Studies in Islam within the Rabita Mohammadia of the Ulemas of Morocco. Having found herself at the heart of a controversy on the issue of gender equality in the field of inheritance, and under pressure from conservative groups, she resigned from this position, which brought her a lot of trouble from conservatives who did not appreciate her open-mindedness and her bold proposals such as mixing in the mosques.
Asma Lamrabet has written several books such as: Simply Muslim (2002); Aisha, Wife of the Prophet or Feminine Islam (2004); The Quran and Women: A Reading for Liberation (2007); Women, Islam, the West: Paths to the Universal (2011); Women and Men in the Quran: What Equality? (2012); Women and Islam: A Reformist Vision (2015); Islam and Women: Angry Questions (2016).
Asma Lamrabet is the winner of the 2017 Grand Atlas Prize for her book Islam and Women, the Angry Questions. She also received a social science award from the Arab Woman Organization for her book, Women and Men in the Quran: What Equality?
Be the first to comment