You are interning with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Given your intimate knowledge of Islamic history, you were asked to serve as a cultural consultant to the “Subcommittee for the Advancement of Social Justice in Muslim Countries”, where you were assigned to serve on a team of cultural advisers to the Subcommittee’s president. Learning that you have recently completed a course on the Prophet Muhammad, your supervisor asks for your feedback on the presentation he will be delivering at next week’s summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, where he will lobby Muslim governments to address issues of social justice.
To your horror, you discover that the presentation includes no references to Islam or the Prophet . Therefore, you decide to draft a (500-600 words) memorandum to your boss educating him about
(1) the status of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic tradition (you may want to focus, for instance, on either the role the Prophet’s sunna plays in shaping Islam, or on how is perceived and viewed by mystics or other Muslims), and
(2) the teachings/ideas of progressive Muslim authors (i.e. Amina Wadud, Omid Safi, or Asma Barlas) with regards to the issues of social justice and gender equality.