Farnham Humanists hosted a talk by Kauser Aktar on 
“Women and Sharia Law” on Sunday September 14th at the Hop Blossom Pub.
Kauser works as Surrey Faith Links Adviser for the Church of England Diocese of Guildford in partnership with Surrey County Council.
She is a Governor at Fullbrook Secondary School in Surrey and writes on their webpage: “I am passionate about creating community cohesion between people of different faiths and no faith.”
John de Prey writes about the talk:
“Kauser Akhtar spoke to Farnham Humanists and guests to further nurture the much needed understanding and communication between Muslims and non-Muslims. Her work also reaches to those who have no true knowledge of Islam but do things claimed to be in its name. In her presentation “Women in Islam”, she defined key terms and described the use of the Qur’an, Sunnah and Hadith, and Shariah Law. She told how in the early days Shariah gave previously unheard of rights to women, and the spirit of Islam is for women to be equal to but different from men. Many important, powerful and accomplished Muslim women can be found in history.
Kauser explained that unfortunately there is no one voice of Islam, and it is the negative extremes that catch the attention of the media. Many clichéd ideas of the treatment of women under Shariah Law as regards divorce, custody of children and giving evidence are simply uninformed.
It is in recent times that some men have distorted interpretation of the Qur’an to subjugate women, particularly in India and Saudi Arabia. Also, very evidently, the young are being influenced by misbehaving, unqualified “Imams”. The work of Kauser Akhtar and others is hugely important, to encourage Muslims to be guided by true scholars and to communicate with the wider community. Her honesty, clarity and wit were greatly appreciated.
Links to Kauser’s presentation and other references
Kauser’s presentation can be found here and she has provided more detailed information behind her presentation which can be found here . She has also provided a link to a website which she says explains the law on Apostasy and a 4 page leaflet on “Islam on Interfaith” – pages: 1 2 3 and 4 .