This audio is brought to you by Muslim Central.com. Hi, my name is Mike Bachman, and I'm a United Methodist pastor, and I'm excited that we're able to share in a little question and answer time with Imam Omar Suleiman.

He's here to answer questions from some folks who have been part of our audience

as we have been having an extended conversation together.

So I'll introduce them each and I'm looking forward to hearing their questions and their response that Imam Omar has.

Well, we have Lynn Walters here. She lives in nearby Irving, it's right next to Dallas, which has also been a site where there's been a certain amount of controversy surrounding relationship between Muslims and the surrounding context, both in the school district with a case where a student

showed up with a clock that he made and who was Muslim and people assumed that it was a

bomb and it's also the site where we've had some

armed protests take place in front of the Islamic Center and then counter-protest of

support for religious freedom so I'm glad that we have someone from Irving here.

And interested to hear what question you might have, Lynn.

I am also a student at Bright Divinity School, although I haven't decided if I want to be ordained or not.

We can talk.

So my question is about women in Islam.

So I understand that the Quran is actually pretty

progressive in terms of women.

But it doesn't seem to translate sometimes into the way that the faith is lived out, at least from my Christian perspective.

So if you could answer that I appreciate it.

That's a wonderful question.

And so obviously Islam introduced many rights to women that were well ahead of its time. so the right to vote for example the right to

inherit so the first actual religious scripture which which grants inheritance

rights to women was the Quran. The right to marriage, to choose who to marry,

the right to pursue divorce, all these things were granted right. And actually it's interestingly enough,

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