Leila Ahmed

Rethinking the veil: Leila Ahmed in conversation with Azadeh Moaveni

By Viola Caon Watch the event here. Few garments have been as discussed as extensively or emotively as the veil, which for many in the West has become a symbol of the repression of Muslim women. But Harvard Divinity professor Leila Ahmed, who was at the Frontline Club to discuss her recent book A Quiet Revolution: […]

FULLY BOOKED Insight with Leila Ahmed: A Quiet Revolution

Leila Ahmed was raised in Cairo in the 1940’s, by a generation of women who never dressed in veils and headscarves. To them, they seemed irrelevant to both modern life and Islamic piety. Today, the majority of Muslim women throughout the Islamic world again wear the veil. Why, Ahmed asks, did this change take root so swiftly, and what does this shift mean for women, Islam, and the West.

Leila Ahmed, who is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School, will be joining us at the Club in conversation with Azadeh Moaveni, Iranian-American writer, journalist and author of Lipstick Jihad, to discuss her new book A Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence, from the Middle East to America and her surprising discoveries about Muslim women, Islamism and democracy.

Leila Ahmed and Azadeh Moaveni: the resurgence of the veil

Why are so many Muslim women around the world choosing to cover themselves when previous generations had decided against wearing the veil? This is the question Leila Ahmed sets out to answer in her book A Quiet Revolution, the veil’s resurgence from the Middle East to America.  Having grown up in the 1940s in a family where […]