Off to Istanbul
Dr. Gwynne Guibord departing Los Angeles October 12 for Istanbul, Turkey
Challenging Assumptions in Istanbul
One look out the plane window at the minarets reaching for the sky, and it was clear we had entered a vastly different world than the one at home.
After travel tangles at the airport we finally reached our shuttle, where we were joined by a fellow traveler, a Muslim woman covered from head to foot. As we pulled out into evening traffic, a lively conversation burst into full bloom from amid the suitcases and piles of bags. Exhaustion could not dampen the eagerness in the air about this remarkable opportunity for Muslim women from all over the world to share and come together as women of faith alive with a passion to make things better wherever they are and in whatever cause touches their heart.
Our fellow traveler laughed delightedly at the astonishment of those she so often encounter who expect a woman wearing such garments to be oppressed and diminished. Instead we found a very savvy, outspoken woman who had traveled thousands of miles alone with the blessing of her family. Challenging assumptions. Interfaith exchanges always validate that we are all human and our stories are the same though the filters and flavors enrich and challenge us.
More tomorrow when the Conference begins in earnest.
Watch the conference live at: http://www.wisemuslimwomen.org/wise_2011_conference_live_video_stream
After travel tangles at the airport we finally reached our shuttle, where we were joined by a fellow traveler, a Muslim woman covered from head to foot. As we pulled out into evening traffic, a lively conversation burst into full bloom from amid the suitcases and piles of bags. Exhaustion could not dampen the eagerness in the air about this remarkable opportunity for Muslim women from all over the world to share and come together as women of faith alive with a passion to make things better wherever they are and in whatever cause touches their heart.
Our fellow traveler laughed delightedly at the astonishment of those she so often encounter who expect a woman wearing such garments to be oppressed and diminished. Instead we found a very savvy, outspoken woman who had traveled thousands of miles alone with the blessing of her family. Challenging assumptions. Interfaith exchanges always validate that we are all human and our stories are the same though the filters and flavors enrich and challenge us.
More tomorrow when the Conference begins in earnest.
Watch the conference live at: http://www.wisemuslimwomen.org/wise_2011_conference_live_video_stream
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Istanbul: Turkish Press Interview Dr. G
Turkish press interview Dr. Gwynne Guibord, speaking at WISE conference in Istanbul
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WISE Istanbul – Affirming the Faith that transforms the world
Dr. Mahnaz Afridi with Dr. Gwynne Guibord at WISE Conference
These are the women working in the trenches with the battered and broken, the displaced and dispairing. Women working in the system to make the changes that make s difference. Women journalist and doctors, politicians and scholars. Mothers and wives and daughters fighting for peace and creating compelling nacent possibilities for justice.
Dr. Gwynne Guibord at WISE Conference, Istanbul, Turkey
They are women of tremendous faith for whom being Muslim is the core of their being. Such a gathering humbles and inspires at the same time.
We are here to affirm the Faith, wherever it is found, that transforms the world. We celebrate community. Creating meaningful, constructive change is too hard to do alone. We are here to witness and so be empowered.
The exquisite treat of the evening was a presentation by the 22nd generation granddaughter of Rumi who once again entoned the truth that travels across all continents and ages: Love is at the center.
Dr. Guibord has been asked as spiritual leader to offer what she can of her own journey that might be helpful. She will do so on a panel tomorrow.
So til then... Dr. Lo Sprague
WISE Istanbul – Turning Islam Inside Out
Little did we realize when we started out from Los Angeles on Wednesday, that Daisy Khan and her dedicated team manifesting The WISE Conference are key players in the revision of Islam in the context of women in the 21st Century. The WISE Conference is engaged in turning Islam INSIDE OUT! -- faithfully, lovingly, with great integrity and in order to reclaim its historic valuing of the serious scholarship and 
transformational leadership of women.
This transformation of Islam has is through life and death dimensions around the globe: from Africa to the Middle East to Asia. That's why more than 200 women leaders are here from 45 countries.
Our morning of religious and spiritual leadership began after a fellowship breakfast with Sufi devotions in the form of lyrical rhythmic singing followed by the chanted recitation of the Holy Qu'ran.
The first panel "Illuminating Our Path: Through the Lens of Spiritual Leaders" featured three Muslim spiritual leaders including the first woman judge ever elected to the Shari'ah Court in Palestine. They all deal with family and the laws and practices governing family life from marriage to inheritance to domestic violence and rape to adoption. The judge, steeped in the understanding of Holy Quran, questioned unjust laws impacting women and she showed her male colleagues that, in fact, there is no justification in scripture to support such laws. And she got them changed.
These women's voices rooted in solid scholarship are rising throughout the Muslim world and being listened to as they put forth a standard of social justice and compassion and of the full equality of men and women that are the heart of the Quran. We will learn more of this aspect tomorrow.
The second panel was with the Muslim Women's Shura Council, a new institution that strives to find and discuss women's values of compassion and equality in the building of an understanding of what God wants of human beings as reflected in Muslim laws and practices. It has done sterling scholarship to validate and reclaim women's authority. They are raising up a new generation of young Muslin women around the globe who will seek graduate degrees by linking into a top-notch graduate program in conjuncture with Union Theological Seminary in New York.
What if our legal system was dynamic and based on compassion and the spirit of the law, on true equality and concern for the weak and the poor? What if no law would be acceptable if it lacked compassion in the real world? Talk about turning something inside out!
And then came the panel -- "Women on the Front Lines of Faith: An Interfaith Exchange" with the Rev. Dr. Gwynne Guibord, Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cohn, Rita Sherman, and moderated by Mehnaz Afridi. These non-Muslim women shared their stories, struggles and triumphs with their Muslim sisters. Dr. Guibord spoke movingly of her calling to this work and that one feels oddly protected because it is about what God is doing and not what we are doing. She brought good humor and her warmth to the group and was received with equal warmth and gratitude.
The final panel focussed on how the women of Turkey look at Sufism, often considered the heart of Islam.
An exhilarating and exhausting day.
More tomorrow.
Dr. Lo Sprague with Dr. Guibord in Istanbul
transformational leadership of women.
This transformation of Islam has is through life and death dimensions around the globe: from Africa to the Middle East to Asia. That's why more than 200 women leaders are here from 45 countries.
Our morning of religious and spiritual leadership began after a fellowship breakfast with Sufi devotions in the form of lyrical rhythmic singing followed by the chanted recitation of the Holy Qu'ran.
The first panel "Illuminating Our Path: Through the Lens of Spiritual Leaders" featured three Muslim spiritual leaders including the first woman judge ever elected to the Shari'ah Court in Palestine. They all deal with family and the laws and practices governing family life from marriage to inheritance to domestic violence and rape to adoption. The judge, steeped in the understanding of Holy Quran, questioned unjust laws impacting women and she showed her male colleagues that, in fact, there is no justification in scripture to support such laws. And she got them changed.
These women's voices rooted in solid scholarship are rising throughout the Muslim world and being listened to as they put forth a standard of social justice and compassion and of the full equality of men and women that are the heart of the Quran. We will learn more of this aspect tomorrow.
The second panel was with the Muslim Women's Shura Council, a new institution that strives to find and discuss women's values of compassion and equality in the building of an understanding of what God wants of human beings as reflected in Muslim laws and practices. It has done sterling scholarship to validate and reclaim women's authority. They are raising up a new generation of young Muslin women around the globe who will seek graduate degrees by linking into a top-notch graduate program in conjuncture with Union Theological Seminary in New York.
What if our legal system was dynamic and based on compassion and the spirit of the law, on true equality and concern for the weak and the poor? What if no law would be acceptable if it lacked compassion in the real world? Talk about turning something inside out!
And then came the panel -- "Women on the Front Lines of Faith: An Interfaith Exchange" with the Rev. Dr. Gwynne Guibord, Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cohn, Rita Sherman, and moderated by Mehnaz Afridi. These non-Muslim women shared their stories, struggles and triumphs with their Muslim sisters. Dr. Guibord spoke movingly of her calling to this work and that one feels oddly protected because it is about what God is doing and not what we are doing. She brought good humor and her warmth to the group and was received with equal warmth and gratitude.
The final panel focussed on how the women of Turkey look at Sufism, often considered the heart of Islam.
An exhilarating and exhausting day.
More tomorrow.
Dr. Lo Sprague with Dr. Guibord in Istanbul
Making the Sacrifice to Unleash the Holy
The WISE women planned the conference well in putting the religious and spiritual contributions first. They appreciated far more than we suspected how much we would need that strength and humility for the days that followed.
This morning began with a soulful poem dedicated to all of the young people who have given their lives in the past few months for the Arab Spring. The more the day went on, the more we learned of just how much blood has been lost in birthing the fragile beginnings of a tenuous new world.
After the opening prayers there was time first to look at the hard-won victories of five remarkably courageous, deeply determined women who have perservered to win election or build a successful organization in the Phillipines, Pakistan, Turkey, Kenya and Afghanistan. Each has made remarkable strides for the well-being of women throughout her country.
Senator Santani Tillah Rasul of the Phillipines passed the Women in Development and National Building Act which immediately changed the life of every woman in the Phillipines dramatically by changing repressive laws that crippled families and hurt the whole society. The women on her panel have all made similarily positive changes from rewriting the country's constitution to taking on the Taliban.
The changes have been at unimaginable personal cost. I recalled meeting Suraya Pakzad, in 2006, at a conference in Barcelona sponsored by an organization named PeaceXPeace about women in Afghanistan sneaking girls into their homes to teach them, in defiance of the Taliban. She led those efforts and Voice of Women Organization which teaches girls all over the country, out in the open.
Now in 2011, she is still living under death threats and still helping to protect and educate girls and take on the Taliban. Twenty-two women leaders in Afghanistan have already been killed. Suraya is living her faith and putting her life on the line just like every one of the other women who spoke throughout the day.
The panel on "The Muslim Women Who Sparked The Arab Spring" included video clips of young activists turned back at the airport, denied entrance to Turkey for the Conference.. Watching clips of these young people urging the people of their country to come out and join in peaceful protest left one speechless. Their courage. Their innocence.
The profound dream for their country and their willingness to lay down their lives for it.
It was a lesson in non-violence worthy of Gandhi, himself.
Traveling through the half dozen youth on the stage tore through layer after layer around the heart. These young women and men have stood true to the best we can hope for within ourselves and given themselves over to be brutalized and murdered in the prayer and the belief that their sacrifice will disarm the world. The results are not in yet, and yet, I can tell you, having heard their stories, that they have already changed something in me. And I will honor their lives and their stories, though not fully, right here and right now.
Every faith holds at its core the value of love and the practice of peace-making. This day we joined together as a community of women witnessed by a few wise men as we paid tribute to all those who have transformed us with the graciousness and enormity of the sacrifice of their lives.
The night ended with Sufi songs and prayers and an unexpected and generous gift of appreciation by Imam Feisal for the interfaith presenters and the work they do.
Another powerful and poignant day in Istanbul has come to a close.
Muslim Women's Shura Council Member
This morning began with a soulful poem dedicated to all of the young people who have given their lives in the past few months for the Arab Spring. The more the day went on, the more we learned of just how much blood has been lost in birthing the fragile beginnings of a tenuous new world.
Dr. Guibord answering follow up questions
Senator Santani Tillah Rasul of the Phillipines passed the Women in Development and National Building Act which immediately changed the life of every woman in the Phillipines dramatically by changing repressive laws that crippled families and hurt the whole society. The women on her panel have all made similarily positive changes from rewriting the country's constitution to taking on the Taliban.
Political and Organizational Women's Panel
Now in 2011, she is still living under death threats and still helping to protect and educate girls and take on the Taliban. Twenty-two women leaders in Afghanistan have already been killed. Suraya is living her faith and putting her life on the line just like every one of the other women who spoke throughout the day.
Intense Conversations
The profound dream for their country and their willingness to lay down their lives for it.
It was a lesson in non-violence worthy of Gandhi, himself.
Objectives of the Law
Suraya Pakzad, Courageous Afghan Leader Living Under a Death Threat
The night ended with Sufi songs and prayers and an unexpected and generous gift of appreciation by Imam Feisal for the interfaith presenters and the work they do.
Another powerful and poignant day in Istanbul has come to a close.
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