Rafia Zakaria is a columnist for DAWN, Pakistan’s largest English newspaper. She is a writer and PhD candidate in political philosophy. Her work and views have been featured in the New York Times, Dissent, The Progressive, Guernica, and on Al Jazeera English, the BBC, The Hindu, and National Public Radio. She is the author of The Upstairs Wife: An intimate history of Pakistan, forthcoming from Beacon Press.
By one common reading of the Holy Qur’an, a Muslim woman must choose between rejecting her faith and rejecting the notion of equality. This Kuala Lumpur-based journalist and activist has been working to find a third option.
The first publicly ordained Orthodox Jewish female rabbi; an attorney leading the campaign to ordain Mormon women; a nun whose career was threatened for daring to question the Virgin Mary as a symbol of subservience; a Muslim journalist whose organization is re-translating the Qur'an's most controversial verse. Bringing change to institutions entrenched in centuries of tradition takes a very specific kind of fighting spirit.