This reflects and responds to a very ancient, and very widely observed taboo. In some primitive societies, women are banished from their husband’s house during menstruation.

And this leads us towards a further question. Feminists point out that early Christian celibacy was driven by a horror of the flesh, so that women were, in Tertullian’s words, “the devil’s gatew

The Sufi metaphysicians were drawing on a longstanding distinction between the divine names that were called Names of Majesty (jalal), and the Names of Beauty (jamal).

In this respect, perhaps more than in any other way, ours is not a Western tradition.

With these preliminary points in mind, let us now move on to the core issue. Modern women writers on religion...

How would you feel if you were suddenly all alone, you had lost your entire family, you were stranded in a foreign land with no way of going back home, even to mourn?