SISTERS OF SCHEHREZADE

Whetstone Productions is developing a documentary film on Muslim women.  Tentatively titled “Sisters of Schehrezade,” this film will trace the roots and precedents for women’s power and leadership roles in Islam. 

We will begin by meeting Muslim women today: executives, scholars, merchants, educators, judges.  Their lives reflect the lives of leading women in the times of the Prophet.  Through their eyes, through their lives we will discover what was once commonly available to Muslim women and through their scrutiny we will distinguish what’s gone awry.  At its heart “Sisters of Schehrezade” asserts that today’s Muslim women, those that have already “made it,” and those struggling for equality, respect, and independence, are not reinventing the wheel but are, in fact, polishing the wheel built in the days of the Prophet Muhammad himself.

Producer/Director Anisa Mehdi’s personal statement about this film: “In my travels over the past decade as a journalist focused on Islam, I have met extraordinary women engaged in the pursuit of justice, education and reformation Malaysia, Iran, Senegal, Turkey, Egypt and America.   They may not be consciously walking the path of the early Muslim women when they set out to lead full and contributing lives, yet they are her living manifestation.  Their stories are filled with the dragons of patriarchy, the stormy seas of revolution, the harrowing challenges of poverty, and the torture of loneliness.  They are also stories of ambition, faith, striving and success.  These are stories that will surprise many Westerners and resonate with people worldwide – for where is it not true that women are struggling to build better societies and to experience some personal fulfillment in this lifetime?  This documentary film proposes to separate myth from reality in the worlds of Schehrezade’s sisters.”