There are many ways of being a Muslim

Cultural traditions often get mistaken for religion. A good example is forced marriages - there is absolutely nothing in Islam that says forced marriages are acceptable (...) It is the culture of these people that they should be criticizing.

Tehmina Kazi ,British lawyer

I got an invitation to go and climb mount Kilimanjaro which is the tallest point in Africa.(...) And when I put this to people they thought it was a shocking idea that a woman would want to climb a mountain (...) I put forward stories from Islamic histories, so talking about the wife if the Prophet, lady Khadija - she would climb a mountain every day to go and visit him while he was meditating in these mounts called the cave of Hera where he eventually received the revelation of the Qur'an (...) Here was it, right in my face, that something that was so embedded and entrenched in Islamic history was something I wasn't supposed to do because I was a girl

Shelina Janmohammed, British writer and debater

We work (...) with progressive organizations, faith- and non-faith-based and we include gays and transgender in our community; we're very welcoming of them(...) And that is the first step to working towards gay rights in Islam(...) As a Muslim it is my responsibility to eradicate these practices and these beliefs; these gender biases from within my faith. I shouldn't be doing it from outside(...)

Ani Zonneveld, director of Muslims for Progressive ValueDebate event about gender and identity in the cross roads between religion and culture

These are words of the three women, who along with 6 other progressive Muslim men and women appear in the Danish educational movie 'Ijtihad' that is used in for instance high schools in Denmark.

You can meet these three women at a debate event at the Black Diamond in Copenhagen Tuesday November 20th from 5-7.30 pm

New tides
Tehmina Kazi, Shelima Janmohammed and Ani Zonneveld represent new currents in western countries such as the US and Great Britain where Muslim populations have been a rooted part of society for much longer than in Denmark.

Each of the three guests have found their own path within a secular and Western framework enabling them to act as independent, uninhibited individuals while remaining faithful towards their religious beleifs.

The programme of the event
Clips from the movie will be shown, followed by interviews with the guests by journalist Bjarke Stender, Denmarks National Radio/Television will interview the guests. Danish-Turkish politician Yildiz Akdogan will moderate the debate following upon. KVINFO's director, Elisabeth Møller Jensen will host and initiate the event.

The event is free of charge, but registration is required.

Welcome in the Black Diamond in Copenhagen!

Kind Regards
Elisabeth Møller Jensen, director