Scientific colloquy on women's rights in Islam held in Rabat
Regional, Religion, 10/30/1998

A scientific colloquy on the rights and duties of women in Islam started proceedings in Rabat on Thursday with the participation of eminent theologians from the Arab-Islamic world.

The two-day colloquy, held as part of the fifth session of the Islamic Awakening University in Morocco, is debating several topics including "woman and reality," "woman and the Islamic Sharia (law)," "woman and civilizational development," "woman and the new world order" and "the Moroccan woman and the edification of a new Morocco."

Princess Lalla Meriem, eldest daughter of King Hassan II who chaired the opening session, called on the Muslim woman to "remain attached to her religion and supreme values" and to abstain from "imitating the behavior in fashion in some societies which are suffering from values crises and disintegration of family ties under the pretext of absolute gender equality."

She noted that the woman's cause in Islam triggered controversy and dialogue between various trends within contemporary Islamic society when the Islamic world got in touch with Western civilization and that these divergences widened following the enforcement of international conventions on human rights in the middle of the century.

These conventions, Princess Lalla Meriem said, granted women rights that were deemed by a part of Muslim intellectuals as a consecration at the international level, having liberated women and granted them the dignity they deserve, through the elimination of discrimination between men and women, while Islam, she said, "was a precursor in the liberation of woman and in recognizing her dignity fourteen centuries ago."

Morocco's minister of habous (endowments) and Islamic affairs, Abdelkebir Alaoui Mdaghri, said during the opening session that his department wishes to initiate a sincere and responsible dialogue between ulemas (theologians), preachers, women's associations and intellectuals in a bid to guarantee women's rights, dignity and emancipation.

The four previous sessions of the Islamic Awakening University were held in Casablanca in 1990, 1991, 1994 and 1997.

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