Mona Siddiqui

Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Women Studies (2013-2014)

The Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Women’s Rights is an initiative that draws on the University of Cambridge’s unparalleled expertise in the fields of gender studies and equality. It explores the many pressing aspects of women’s rights in the world, ranging from the importance of equality in development, religion, law and many other areas.

The Visiting Professorship in Women’s Rights has been made possible by the generous support of Carol Saper and is hosted by King’s College, Cambridge.

Mona Siddiqui is a British Muslim academic. She is Professor of Islamic and Inter-religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

Mona Siddiqui’s Humanitas Visiting Professorship, Feminism, Religion and Women’s Rights, asked important questions about the place of women in contemporary Islamic societies.

Her opening lecture, Can You Text a Divorce? Negotiating Women’s Rights in Law and Society, uses this specific question to open a debate about the relationship between women and fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence, in the world today.

In Siddiqui’s second lecture, Mary in Christian-Muslim Relations, she examines the significance of the fact that Mary is mentioned with greater frequency in the Qu’ran than in the New Testament, and asked whether, in light of this inter-faith commonality, Mary has a role to play in Muslim-Christian relations.

Siddiqui’s last lecture, From the Feminine to Feminism: Women in Islamic Thought and Literature, addresses the diverse ways that women are represented in Islamic thought and literature, and asks whether the reality of women’s lives lies somewhere between the feminine and the feminist.

Mona Siddiqui’s Humanitas tenure ended with a symposium on Feminism, Religion and Women’s Rights. She was joined in discussion by Turkish author Elif Safak, BBC special correspondent Razia Iqbal, Ash Amin(University of Cambridge), and the Iraqi novelist, artist, and political activist Haifa Zangana.