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