KARAMAH held the highly regarded Law and Leadership Summer Program (LLSP) from June 22nd – July 10th, 2020 in Washington, DC. LLSP is KARAMAH’s annual flagship program that seeks to bring together a select group of Muslim women from around the world to study and learn from each other as well as top professors specializing in an array of fields. The program’s objective is to empower and promote women and their rights through education and research. It focuses on three core areas: Islamic jurisprudence, conflict resolution and developing leadership skills.
Thirty-six Muslim women attended this year’s program and had the opportunity to learn from experts, including Dr. Azizah al-Hibri, Dr. Amr Abdalla, Dr. Zainab Alwani, Professor Abed Awad, Professor Khaled Beydoun, Imam Mohamed Magid, Dr. Sara Omar and Professor Saleema Snow. Various topics were covered, such as Muslim Women’s Rights, Islam and Domestic Violence, Interfaith Relations in Islam and Spiritual Leadership. Dr. Amr Abdalla conducted interactive Conflict Resolution workshops during the program.
LLSP consists of two sessions: the Executive and the General. The executive session is only a week but makes up for its short time with its intensive lectures and training. It is geared towards mid-career professionals who are unable to take as much time away from their home and work lives but would still like to benefit from the program. The participants of both sessions themselves are truly what made this year’s and every program in years prior one to remember. The participants embodied diversity in every sense of the word, in terms of race, nationality, regional, academic and career backgrounds, and even age. With no specific target age, KARAMAH’s LLSP contained candidates ranging from ages 17 to 65.
For some, this program aided in reinforcing their faith in the beauty of Islam, for others, rediscovering it. The religion of Islam has been persistently hijacked by a variety of its adversaries including terrorists and misogynists and LLSP helps to reclaim it. There was substantial knowledge delivered by the lawyers, professors, deans, Imams and Islamic scholars debunking myths about Islam and Sharia, and educating these women on their rights. LLSP successfully cultivated an environment where Muslim women could feel safe and express their beliefs and ideas freely.
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