The world of religion is vast and difficult for us to quantify and categorize into neatly distinct entities. - Azza Karam

The 1980s was a very intense period for the Arab world in terms of the growth of religious politics. There was a strong politicization of religion throughout the Arab region and the Middle East in general. Thinking back, I realize that while we only focused on the Islamic political domain, plenty was going on within the Christian communities also across the region, though frankly that has not been well studied.

There has been a gap, not only in research and knowledge, but in terms of our own responsibility as researchers, in trying to understand the women who themselves fight. The ones who are the guerrillas; the ones who are the strategists and the planners; and the ones who blow themselves up.

If there is one lesson we keep learning from history, and that has been highlighted of late by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, is that people change their own cultures from within all the time.