UNC Religion Professor Given Award By Iran

By Cami Marshall

Chapel Hill, NC -- A University of North Carolina religion professor took pause when he learned his academic work would be honored by the government of Iran.

UNC-Chapel Hill professor Carl Ernst is a scholar of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. Carl W. Ernst (born 1950) is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Islamic studies at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.He is also the director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations.
Ernst received his A.B. in comparative religion at Stanford University in 1973, and his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1981.

He wrote a book widely used in Iranian universities on a 12th-century Sufi poet and has traveled extensively in the Middle Eastern country. The News & Observer of Raleigh reports Ernst will accept the Farabi International Award during a ceremony in Iran on Saturday, but he decided to do so only after consulting the university's top leaders.

Ernst's recent book, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World (UNC Press, 2003), has received several international awards, including the 2004 Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Achievement.

Recipients are chosen by the government ministry of science, research and technology. But the plaques are handed out by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Like most Americans, Ernst cringes at the president's politics.

Chancellor Holden Thorp understood the dilemma. Thorp said Ernst told him it looked like an academic honor but knew politics can come into play. Ernst was in Iran earlier this month for a conference and said he received "an incredibly enthusiastic response" when he made a strong plea for improved academic and cultural relations between Iran and the U.S. "So it would have looked strange if I declined an academic award," he said.

Ernst will be honored for his 1996 book on Ruzbihan Baqli, the 12th-century poet born in what is now Iran. The book has twice been translated into Persian.

Two other U.S. academics also will be honored: William Chittick, a religion scholar at the State University of New York at Stony Brook; and Miriam Galston, a lawyer at George Washington University.

Source : Associated Press

Iran says will not halt nuclear work despite U.S.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran will never halt its nuclear work and expects the United States to change its "failed" carrot-and-stick approach to solving the atomic row with Tehran, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said on Sunday he was prepared to offer Iran economic incentives to stop its nuclear program, which Washington says is aimed at making bombs. But he warned that sanctions could be toughened if it refused.

"When they stick to their past view regarding suspending uranium enrichment, our answer will be: Iran will never suspend uranium enrichment," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told reporters.

Washington, which cut ties with Tehran after the 1979 revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed shah, has been pushing hard to isolate Iran over its nuclear plans.

Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, insists it wants to master nuclear technology to generate electricity so it can save more of its oil and gas reserves for exports.

Enrichment is the part of Iran's program that most worries the West because, if uranium is enriched much more, it can make warhead material as well as being used to make fuel for power plants.

"If their (Washington's) new stance is to remove concerns about Iran's nuclear activities, we are ready for that. But our new expectation is ... that they should recognize our right to nuclear technology," Qashqavi said.

"The old policy was carrot and stick. This needs to change and transform into an interactive policy," he said.

During a presidential debate with Republican rival John McCain in October, Obama said his administration would work to restrict gasoline imports to Iran, which cannot make enough refined fuel to meet all domestic needs and has to import some.

Speaking on Sunday, Obama told a U.S. broadcaster: "We are willing to talk to them directly and give them a clear choice and ultimately let them make a determination in terms of whether they want to do this the hard way or the easy way."

Obama takes office on January 20.

"When they talk about change, everyone expects a changed policy to entail something very different to what President (George) Bush was following," Qashqavi said, adding everyone should "wait and see" what approach Obama would take in office.

Iran said last week it did not believe U.S. policy would change under Obama. Its refusal to stop enrichment, has drawn three rounds of U.N. sanctions since 2006, as well as separate U.S. measures.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Louise Ireland)

What Do Muslim Women Want?

An excerpt from the book Who Speaks for Islam? by John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed

In sharp contrast to the popular image of silent submissiveness, Gallup findings on women in countries that are predominantly Muslim or have sizable Muslim populations hardly show that they have been conditioned to accept second-class status. Majorities of women in virtually every country we surveyed say that women deserve the same legal rights as men, to vote without influence from family members, to work at any job they are qualified for, and even to serve in the highest levels of government. In Saudi Arabia, for example, where as of this writing, women were not allowed to vote or drive, majorities of women say that women should be able to drive a car by themselves (61%), vote without influence (69%), and work at any job for which they are qualified (76%). Egyptian women, who have faced far fewer restrictions than their Saudi counterparts, speak even more strongly in favor of women's rights, with 88% of Egyptian women saying that they should be allowed to work at any job for which they are qualified. In Egypt, as in other parts of the Muslim world, this attitude is not just a theory, as a full third of professional and technical workers in Egypt are women, on par with Turkey and South Korea.

If you want to put faces to these data, observe women such as Souad Saleh, an assertive and outspoken woman whose area of expertise is fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence. Saleh is an Islamic jurist and professor at al-Azhar University, the most prominent institution of Islamic scholarship and authority in Sunni Islam. She was the first woman dean of faculty at the institution and is a prolific writer on issues ranging from family law to women's rights, authoring more than seven volumes on Islam and at least four in-depth research works. A regular on pan-Arab television and one of the most outspoken preachers on Islam, her message is clear: "Islam is simple and holds women in high esteem."

Celebrity preachers aren't the only ones who defy conventional wisdom. There are also women like Salwa Riffat, an Egyptian woman now in her late 50s who earned her bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from Cairo University and went on to earn her Ph.D. in civil engineering. At the same time, she managed to successfully balance raising a family and fulfilling the demands of her career. She is now a professor of engineering, teaching men and women alike. "Women of my generation were at the forefront of a new era in Egypt," she says, referring to the wave of women attending college that gained momentum in the 1950s and 1960s. "Now, it's hardly something worth noting that in Egypt, universities are filled with women, in some cases more than men, and they are excelling." The valedictorians of Cairo's elite medical school are famously known to almost always be female.

These cases are hardly unique. Nationally representative self reported data show percentages of women in Iran (52%), Egypt (34%), Saudi Arabia (32%), and Lebanon (37%) with postsecondary educations. In the United Arab Emirates and Iran, women make up the majority of university students. However, in Muslim countries -- as well as in non-Muslim countries -- Gallup finds a wide range of female education with percentages of women pursuing postsecondary educations dipping as low as 8% and 13% in Morocco and Pakistan, respectively, which is comparable with 4% in Brazil, or 11% in the Czech Republic.

Based on the largest and most in-depth study of its kind, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think presents the remarkable findings of the Gallup Poll of the Muslim World, the first ever data-based analysis of the points of view of more than 90% of the global Muslim community, spanning more than 35 nations. Lean more Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think