Turkey's first Muslim feminist women's association, Havle, is named after Khawla – a historical Muslim woman whose protest against marital injustice led to the revelation of the first four verses of Surah Al-Mujadilah in the Quran, and the inspiration behind the association's name. The story of Khawlah bint Tha'labah (referred to in Turkish as Havle Bint-i Salabe ) is one of the most powerful and legally consequential narratives of advocacy in Islamic history. Her refusal to accept an unjust marital custom physically altered the course of Islamic jurisprudence and permanently established women's rights to petition the highest authorities. 1. The Injustice: The Cruel Custom of Zihar Khawlah was a woman from the Khazraj tribe in Medina, married to Aws ibn al-Samit. As they grew older together, Aws developed a quick, irritable temper. Following a domestic dispute, Aws angrily declared to her: "You are to me like the back of my mother." In pre-Isla...
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51