IN her book, If the Oceans Were Ink, Carla Power recalled the time when she informed a close friend that she, a secular Jew, would be studying the Quran with Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a scholar with the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. The friend requested that Power “ask him why Muslim men treat women so badly”.
When she did ask, Sheikh Mohammad Akram replied that it is because men weren’t reading the Quran properly. He explained that many Muslims tend to read the Quran selectively, taking phrases out of context.