Miriam Cooke

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Miriam Cooke (often written as miriam cooke) is a professor of modern Arabic literature and culture at Duke University. She received her doctorate from the St Antony's College, Oxford in 1980. She is the author of War's Other Voices: Women Writers on the Lebanese Civil War and Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing. She was included in conservative author David Horowitz's book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.

miriam cooke, a professor of modern Arabic literature and culture at Duke, rejects the use of capital letters in her name. She describes herself as an advocate of "Islamic feminism" and asserts that "Islamic feminists are declaring that [...] Islam is the ideal just society, but that social justice entails equality for all, including women."[1] She encourages interpreting the Qur'an in a "very woman friendly-way." Kay S. Horowitz of the City Journal has publicly criticized cooke.[2] cooke has been quoted as rationalizing polygamy under the Qur'an because it allows "[s]ome women [to be] relieved when their husbands take a new wife: they won't have to service him so often." In rebuttal, Horowitz noted that this might "be dangerous in places where adulteresses can be stoned to death."

In 1990, the International Journal of Middle East Studies noted that Professor cooke's study of Lebanese women made "numerous mistakes in translation, as well as deletions that detract from the meaning of the original text." Additionally, Sabah Ghandour argued that "cooke seems to be ideologically motivated when analyzing the work of some important literary figures."