Nimat Hafez Barazangi

A Biographical Summary (June 2007)

Nimat Hafez Barazangi is a research fellow at Cornell University. Her book: Woman’s Identity and the Qur’an: A New Reading (The University Press of Florida, December 2004) was labeled by one of the reviewers as “the most radical book in the last 14th centuries of Islam”. She co-edited Islamic Identity and the Struggle for Justice (University Press of Florida 1996, 2000) translated into Arabic, Dar Al Fikr, 1999) in which she also contributed “Vicegerency and Gender Justice,” and has published about thirty articles, essays, and book reviews. Her publications include “Understanding Muslim Women’s Self-Identity and Resistance to Feminism and Participatory Action Research” in Traveling Companions: Feminisms, Teaching, and Action Research. Edited by Mary Brydon-Miller, Patricia Maguire, and Alice McIntyre. Westport, CT: Praeger (2004), 21-39; “Muslim Women’s Islamic Higher Learning as a Human Right: Theory and Practice” in Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-Activists in North America edited by Gisela Webb (Syracuse University Press, 2000), the Arabic translation was edited by Barazangi (2002); and her Guest Edited Volume of the Journal: Religion and Education, titled, Taqwa, The Equilibrium: Issues of Islamic Education in the United States, (Volume 25, Number 1 & 2, Winter 1998), in which she has an article, “The Equilibrium of Islamic Education: Has Muslim Women’s Education Preserved the Religion?”

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Dr. Barazangi has received several awards for her participatory action research, including the Glock Award from the Department of Education at Cornell University for her 1988 PhD dissertation; a visiting fellowship from Oxford University; a scholarship from the International Council for Adult Education; a three-year serial Fulbright scholarship for Syria (1995-97); and the United Nations Development Program 1999 and 2002 fellowships for Syria. She received her BA in philosophy and sociology from Damascus University, her MA in educational psychology and early childhood education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and her PhD in curriculum and instruction, Arabic and Islamic studies, and adult and continuing education from Cornell University. She recently received the 2005-2006 Fulbright Scholarship to Syria.

http://www.eself-learning-arabic.cornell.edu