Mohammad Fadel and I had an extended e-mail conversation on equality between men and women in the Qur’an. Fadel is a member of the faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. We are pleased to have him on as one of our new contributors to the site. He has been working on finding "best practices" in the established legal tradition to resolve gender matters in the contemporary North American context.

I have always understood that while the Qur’an provides for moral equality between men and women, there is no legal equality between men and women, not to mention the free and the enslaved. Moral equality implies that no matter the distinct social heirarchies, all human social roles are equally valuable before God. However one might respond to the fact of legal inequality in the Qur’an, it seems to me that there is no way around the fact of it. Fadel disagreed with me. It turns out I was confusing analysis of legal history and legal thinking itself. Kecia Ali's new book Sexual Ethics and Islam is a superb example of analysis of legal history. She is not trying to make law herself, but rather give an analysis of how law has been made and on what assumptions. Fadel is making analysis of legal thought that makes an explicit legal argument for one position over another. So while Ali's analysis demonstrates that legal equality in the Qur'an has a contested matter and why, Fadel's analysis shows that it should not have to be given our legal options.

My father is one of those swarthy-looking Sicilians and my wife is Arab. So the Hell what, you must be wondering. Well, here in the South West profiling has been alive and well for quite a while, and I'm god damn sick of it! The straw that broke the camel's back came a few days ago when we drove to Tomsbtone, AZ. You know, Tombstone, the OK Corral, Doc Holiday, Wyatt Erp. If you don't know it, well I just suppose you had to go to school here to know. Anyhow, we had a great time given my penchant for historical sites and archeological treasure troves. Now, if one can ignore the rampant kitch that fondles the tourists, then its good to go.