Interpreting of the holy texts is one of the most important ways for Muslim women to assert their rights, said Ingrid Mattson, professor of Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary, last night at an event titled “Clearing the Path to God: Women Reclaiming Islam.”

The talk was the first of a series of four during Islamic Awareness Month designed to raise awareness about misconceptions of the Islamic religion, a collaboration between the Muslim Student Awareness Network, or MSAN, and the Islamic Society of Stanford University, or ISSU.

“We’re essentially introducing the religious community,” said event coordinator and MSAN officer Ali Kemal Okyay, a fourth-year graduate student in electrical engineering. “The talks will introduce what Muslims believe, what we practice, and why we do it. We hope this event will foster greater understanding about Muslims and Islam.”

Sophomore Shelley Cheung, vice-president of MSAN, echoed Okyay.

“The goal for tonight’s event is to clear misconceptions that people may have about Islam, specifically regarding Muslim women,” she said. “By far, the most common stereotype is that we are oppressed by men. However, very few people know about the activism of Muslim women and the power we have to make change in our community.”

Mattson served as an advisor to the Afghan delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 1995. She was also elected vice-president of the Islamic Society of North America in 2001.

Speaking about the role of women in Islam, Mattson particularly stressed about their responsibility to overcome the gender discrimination that has become associated with their religious beliefs.

“Islam cannot be a spiritual resource if it is a source of oppression,” she said. “There are people who use Islam to justify the oppression of women. In many ways it shouldn’t be surprising to us in America since security and patriotism are used to justify all sorts of behaviors and actions.”

More specifically, Mattson said that historical interpretation of the Koran plays a large role in how Islamic law and normative behavior are defined. In medieval Islamic societies, she said, women were not seen as capable of interpreting holy texts.

“The main obstacle for Muslim women in claiming their places in Islam is the struggle for them to be recognized as authoritative in the interpretation of texts,” Mattson said. “The Koran gives examples of women who chose the wrong path, but it also has examples of women who chose the right path. It depends on who’s telling the story.”

Mattson also discussed the judgment often passed on Muslim women and the lives they choose to live.

“If we really desire for Muslim women to fully embrace the understanding and practice of Islam, it’s unfair for others to question if they are free agents or not,” she said. “It’s frustrating to see assumptions often being made that they can’t choose their way of life, what they practice or how they dress. It’s a patronizing and patriarchal view.”

Okyay said that the next dinners will address equally controversial issues.

ISSU officer and event organizer Mehdi Javanmard, a third-year graduate student in electrical engineering, said that negative views of Islam in American society show that there needs to be greater efforts toward educating the public about the religion.

Javanmard cited a December poll from Cornell University in which almost half the respondents said that the government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans in some way. Also, 27 percent of respondents said that all Muslim Americans should be required to register their location with the federal government and 26 percent said that mosques should be closely monitored by U.S. law enforcement agencies. In addition, 22 percent of those polled said the federal government should profile citizens as potential threats based on Middle Eastern heritage or Muslim religion.

“This shows that a large number of Americans are fearful of Islam and Muslims,” Javanmard said. “Ever since Sept. 11, Muslims in America have always been on the defensive. We’ve been mostly focused on explaining who we aren’t. Islamic Awareness Month is an opportunity for us to tell the Stanford campus who we are.”