We congratulate Nahed Ashqar-Shrary on winning the Dan David Prize.
Nahed Ashqar-Shrary is a Ph.D. Candidate at The Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies (AKIS), The Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Sede Boqer, supervised by Dr. Sarab Abu-Rabia-Queder.
The Dan David Prize is an international award, endowed by the Dan David Foundation and headquartered at Tel Aviv University.
The Dan David Prize recognizes and encourages innovative and interdisciplinary research that cuts across traditional boundaries and paradigms. It aims to foster universal values of excellence, creativity, justice, democracy, and progress and to promote the scientific, technological, and humanistic achievements that advance and improve our world.
The Dan David Prize covers three-time dimensions - Past, Present, and Future. Nahed research focuses on the presently recognized achievements that shape and enrich society today.
Her research examines the religious identities of Muslim women in Israel. It is the first attempt of its kind to delve into the critical religious identities of women expounders of feminist Interpretative Islam in the individual sphere, an exploration of their relationships with family, society, Political economy, citizenship, and Hegemony.
Her research topic is highly important not only for being a groundbreaking pioneer on this issue but also as part of the fabric of the Arab religious feminist movement in Israel. This research strives to contribute to the body of feminist theoretical knowledge developing in the Middle East from the unique context of Muslim women in Israel, belonging to the Arab world and living as a minority within Israel, creating a confrontation with simultaneous social and political power structures. This study revealed a unique religious stream in Israel, which is fundamentally different from the mainstream Arab feminist movements in Israel.
