Eighth Debate on Belief and Unbelief: "Do Muslim Societies Need Islamic Feminism?"
The Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California (ICCNC) will hold its eighth debate titled "Do Muslim Societies Need Islamic Feminism?" on Saturday, September 6, 2025 at 10:00 AM (Los Angeles Time). Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Dr. Marziyeh Bakhshizadeh will participate in the debate. Dr. Yaser Mirdamadi moderates this debate.
The purpose of these debates is to broaden and deepen the general public’s understanding of religion in the 21st century. The general theme of the debate series is Belief and Unbelief in a “Post-Secular Era.”
The debate will be live-streamed on Zoom and on ICCNC's YouTube Channel.
Biographies
Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini is a legal anthropologist and a founding member of Musawah, the global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. An independent scholar, she is currently a Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, SOAS, University of London. Her books include Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran (1999) and Journeys Toward Gender Equality in Islam(2022), which was also translated into Persian in 2025. She co-directed two award-winning documentary films on Iran, Divorce Iranian Style (1998) and Runaway (2001), and received the American Academy of Religion’s 2015 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion.
Dr. Marziyeh Bakhshizadeh is a social researcher with an interdisciplinary background in Sociology, Gender Studies, and Religious Studies. She earned her PhD from Ruhr University Bochum with a dissertation titled Changing Gender Norms in Islam: Between Reason and Revelation. Her research examines gender, religion, and social participation in postmigrant societies, including a qualitative study of Muslim migrant women in Germany. She has taught Gender and Diversity as well as Social Work at several German universities and has extensive experience in refugee work and empowerment programs for migrant women from Islamic countries.
Dr. Yaser Mirdamadi is a researcher in medical ethics at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London. In 2019, he received Ph.D. in Islamic and Middle East Studies from the University of Edinborough. He has an MA in Muslim Cultures from Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations (AKU-ISMC) London, UK, and an MA in Islamic Theology from Ferdowsi University Mashhad, Iran. Also, Dr. Mirdamadi completed a Level 3 Diploma (equivalent to a Master’s degree) in Classical Islamic studies from Hawza Ilmiyya (Islamic Seminary), Mashhad, Iran.
